


gonna take you everywhere (and never ask you who you are)

by louchanan



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, One Direction (Band)
Genre: Established Relationship, Friends to Lovers, Insecure Louis, M/M, Mild Smut, Spideypool - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-19
Updated: 2016-05-15
Packaged: 2018-05-27 13:57:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 34,442
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6287317
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/louchanan/pseuds/louchanan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“He ripped out your heart?” Harry asks. “Literally or metaphorically?”</p><p>“Oh, literally,” Louis replies. “I wouldn’t let anyone but you metaphorically rip out my heart, you hunk.”</p><p>“Sometimes I think we shouldn’t work together because you’ll be too distracted by your crush on me,” Harry says cheekily.</p><p>“I already am and I haven’t died yet.”</p><p>“That’s because you can’t die.”</p><p> </p><p>  <i>or, Louis Tomlinson is the merc with a mouth and Harry Styles is the famous web slinger. </i></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hiiiiiii !!!! I'm back with another fic after like two weeks of posting my last one aha ! So yeah, this was written in two weeks so I hope it isn't too bad. I've always been a big fan of Deadpool and since seeing the movie, I just had to bring my two worlds together. Obviously I had to make it Louis - Wade and Harry - Peter because that's how I see it. If you don't, I'm sorry. This fic follows some things both from the movie and the comics. I'm sorry I only got to 17k but I really wanted to get this out soon and just got a little too excited for it. And maybe I'll try to make a series of works in this Spideypool AU. 
> 
> There is some violence throughout the fic, though not graphic, and Louis is pretty crude and makes a lot of sexual jokes/innuendos. Be safe, I love you, I hope you enjoy.
> 
> The title is from Electric Current - Lower Dens.
> 
> [my tumblr](http://louchanan.tumblr.com)

In the life of a superhero, things are always bound to go wrong. With no boyfriend or girlfriend to be used as leverage against him and no fall outs with potential-villain friends, Harry thought he’d avoid all the painful cliches. But even without the cheesy, trite plot, his life manages to be upside down. Right now, it’s literally. 

 

Maybe it’s his fault. It probably is. He should’ve known that nothing good comes from a man who fights with sharp katanas and pistols with Hello Kitty stickers on them. Any logical person would yet. There he is, caught in a net alongside another man like two large fish. 

 

“I can hear them coming,” He says, beginning to wriggle against the tight net around them. He sees the shadows of the men coming for them grow against the gray corridor. “We have to get out now.”

 

“Okay, and I understand that but can you please not move like that?” The other masked man asks. “Otherwise, they’re not going to be the only ones coming, and I’d much rather have you to myself when you see me come.”

 

“What the fuck?”

 

“You’re knee is literally against my cock, Spidey,” He replies. “And that spandex looks great on you, okay? I still think you could squat more to compete with my ass but still, your biceps are incredible.”

 

“We really don’t have time for this,” Harry sighs. 

 

“Yeah, I know,” and then Harry’s falling, barely catching himself on his feet. The diamond-eyed man holds a blade in his hand and Harry can just tell he’s smiling. Harry decides it time to run and ask questions later. They both sprint down the hall until they reach an exit, which happens to be a window at least 30 feet above the ground. Harry shoots his web and goes to grab Deadpool but he slips from his hand because he’s decided to jump. 

 

As Harry’s swinging out, he can hear his ankles shatter and his loud, pained groan. It’s typical of him really. Harry swoops down beside Deadpool, who’s lying face down on the cement. “You shouldn’t have jumped,” Harry says and the other man rolls onto his back.

 

“You’re right,” He replies. “But it could’ve been worse. I’ve been through worse. I’ve had my ankles go through my fucking brain once. This is child’s play.”

 

Deadpool tries to stand but falls against Harry with a pained gasp, wrapping his arms around his waist to keep from ending up on the floor again. “C’mon,” Harry says before lifting him onto his back. 

 

“Oh God, you’re taking me home?” He asks. “Before you’ve taken me out to dinner?” 

 

“I’m not taking you home,” Harry replies before shooting a web and swinging away from the gunfire that almost reaches them. “You can’t just… give away the place you live so easily, Pool.”

 

“Okay, but it’s you, ‘friendly neighborhood Spider Man’,” He says. Harry would be lying if he didn’t feel a little embarrassed. “What would you do to me? And what the hell would you want from the blind bastard I live with? Nothing. Unless you’re interested in braille reading lessons, then I’ll let him know.”

 

“Fine, just tell me then.”

 

Louis plops beside Zayn on the couch, sighing. Zayn doesn’t react, so Louis sighs again. No reaction, he just keeps running his fingers along the page of his book. It won’t do.

 

Louis crawls until he’s in Zayn’s lap and groans loudly. “What the fuck do you want?” Zayn asks, putting down his book. “Is it Spider Man again? Are you still on that?”

 

It’s not the first time Louis’s come home to his friend with his Spider Man woes. And it definitely will not be the last anytime soon. 

 

“No,” Louis replies. “And that’s the problem. I’m not on him or even in him... though I’d prefer him in me. That spandex… it stretches so much around h--”

 

“Louis.”

 

“I’m just saying! He doesn’t leave much to the imagination and it’s beautiful,” Louis sighs dreamily before he removes his mask, feeling like air is really beginning to hit his face. His scarred face. “I just hope it’s the opposite for me.”

 

Falling in love with another masked vigilante wasn’t a part of Louis’s plan at all. But he honestly couldn’t help it. He doesn’t know if it was the utter sexiness of Spider Man while he was rescuing him or the fact that he just had a bullet go through his brain when they first met. Maybe both. But Louis knows that when he saw him, dressed up in blue and red, At Last by Etta James filled his bleeding mind and flowers bloomed where he walked. 

 

He doesn’t even understand his affection for him. They’re hardly alike. Spider Man is a hero, Louis isn’t. Spider Man treats fighting the bad guys as a job, Louis likes to have fun with it. 

 

Louis thought he liked having things up his ass but clearly not as much as Spider Man since he keeps a stick in it all the time. The first time they met, Louis remembers, in his almost intoxicated state, he said Spider Man belonged in the MoMA and that they had to leave immediately before they noticed a missing art piece. Spider Man hardly acknowledged that compliment, which was one of Louis’s best. 

 

Maybe he wasn’t impressed. Louis will work on it. 

 

“I’m sure it won’t be your fugly face that makes him dislike you but your asshole personality,” Zayn replies honestly, which Louis always appreciates. “Did you put him in danger again to be with him a bit longer tonight?” 

 

“...No,” Louis answers, trying to push out the fact that he was very capable of cutting the both of them out of the net the second they were trapped but kind of liked feeling Spider Man so close. If he shut his eyes, he could just pretend that Spidey had his arms around him like they were hugging. 

 

“That’s what’s going to make him hate you. He’s going to start catching on and you’re going to take it too far one day.”

 

“Maybe he’ll hatefuck me then, and he’ll be too enraged to notice how fucking disgusting I am… or even not bother undressing me,” Louis says. “Not a bad idea. Thanks, Zayn.”

 

He gets to his feet and begins retreating to his room. He hears Zayn mutter, “Fucking imbecile,” and he grins to himself. 

 

-

 

“Fuck!” Louis groans, turning away from the fight to drop both of his swords and touch the deep wound on his shoulder. Really, he didn’t expect to find a goon this good with a blade. “Bro! What is your Fruit Ninja score?” Louis exclaims, feeling his skin slowly start to seal. Still, Louis’s better. He picks up one of his swords and slices through the goon’s wrist easily. 

 

“You’re such a comedian,” the evil goon huffs as he lies on the ground, shaking with pain. Louis thinks his wrist resembles a small, raw steak. “Just like that Spider Man, always cracking jokes.” 

 

Louis puts the tip of his blade on the ground and places a hand on his hip. He sighs, “Okay, I hear that a lot but I’m having a hard time figuring out if we’re talking about the same web-slinger or not. He never laughs at what I say! And he never jokes with me, not even a fucking knock knock joke or fucking... updog.”

 

The goon raises an eyebrow and asks, “What’s updog?”

 

Louis screams happily, pointing at him. He skips a quick lap around the man in glee. “Nothing much, what’s up with you!” Louis squeals, shooting handguns at him. He takes a deep breath and straightens up. “Alright, I have to kill you now. But you know what? I’ll always remember you.”

 

He’s about to sink his katana into his chest when he hears the patter of men coming up the stairs. “Oh fuck. Did you call backup?” Louis asks, squatting beside the man and grabbing him by his collar. “What the fuck! That’s like so not on, man. I thought we had something.”

 

The men pile into the floor, guns at the ready. “Listen, I don’t really have time for this orgy right now!” Louis shouts. “You’re all really attractive and were probably blessed with exceptional length, except you maybe,” he points at one of the men, who does turn a little red with embarrassment behind his gun, “but I need to reschedule. I left the kettle on and I have a blind man in my house. He might die in a fire, or worse. He might use all the boiled water for his own tea and I will be so pissed. So please-”

 

Louis ducks from the bullets shot at him. “That’s so fucking rude!” Louis says, looking at how the tips of his fingers are gone. “I was going to use these. But now I guess I’m going in, no prep.”

 

Louis whips out his guns. With every shot fired, he alternates between, “He loves me,” and “he loves me not.” 

 

He breezes through the minions easily enough until he’s left with the original man. “You know, you’re really no use to me if you won’t tell me anything you know about where Ajax is,” Louis says as he raises his gun, pointing it at his forehead. “So anything you’d like to say before I lobotomize you with a fucking bullet?”

 

He opens his mouth but Louis shoots him before any words come out. The smug expression he had on before told Louis that whatever he said wouldn’t be useful. “He loves me,” Louis says finally before twirling on his toes, sniffing at the barrel of his freshly fired gun. He won’t lie that thinking about Spider Man while feeling the thrill of going up against a team of men does get him a bit riled up. “Alright, time to go home and go through the wank bank,” Louis adds. ‘Wank bank’ referring to the really good, HD photos of Spider Man in web articles since he can’t trust porn with men dressed in Spider Man suits after what happened last time.

 

Louis takes a taxi home. He sits in the backseat, texting Niall and sending him the selfie he took with the goon’s severed hand flipping off the camera. Niall finds it quite fucking awesome and Louis’s about to reply when he hears the beginning of a song he despises. 

 

“Can you change the channel to something less vomit-inducing?” Louis asks, sticking his masked head through the partition. He tries to reach his arm through but it isn’t long enough. Luckily, his driver grunts and changes it. “Thank you. If I could go back in time, I would literally stop her from ever uttering the word ‘fancy’. Why couldn’t we have given this song to Nicki Minaj? She would’ve made it good. She would’ve saved us.”

 

Louis’s about to continue his rant, going on to diss every other bad white rapper, before he sees police cars and ambulances all race by in a flurry. “Stop the fucking car!” He screeches just before the brakes do.

 

Harry holds his breath as he tries to think, tries to think of what to do with man after man coming into the science exhibit with guns in their hands. There isn’t a doubt in his mind that they were all hired by Ajax.

Possibly to pick up irradiated spiders from their displayed terrariums to create more people like him, like Spider Man, and build his army. 

 

He needs to find a place to get on his web-shooters in private and get a mask over his face. He needs a diversion. 

 

It comes in the form of a merc with a mouth. “Tally ho!” He shouts as he crashes through a mirror, falling into a large model of Newton Balls, the wires wrapping around his ankle and arms. “Oh, balls,” He groans as he begins to untangle himself right before bullets rain on him. Harry tries to fight off the smile creeping on his face but he remembers he has more important things to do. Like find a closet. 

 

Finally suited up, Harry finds Deadpool swinging from the solar system on the ceiling, one hand grabs onto the pole that holds the moon and his other hand holds his gun. “Wait!” He screams. The bullets cease for a moment. “Fellas, how does a man on the moon cut his hair? Eclipse it!” 

 

Deadpool releases the celestial body, falling with a spin and shooting his pistol. Every bullet goes through a man’s forehead. Harry would really admire his quality of work if he believed in killing people.

 

Louis’s about to shoot the last goon when he hears the sound of web slinging and his trigger won’t budge. “So nice of you to join us, Spidey, but what the fuck?” Louis whines, even attempting to drop his gun but seeing that that won’t happen. More web is shot, one over the goon’s mouth and one around his wrists. As Spider Man finally nears him, Louis says, “God, you should do that to me later.”

 

“Shut up or I’ll do it now,” Harry replies before going to grab the bad guy. 

 

“Oh, you exhibitionist bastard,” Louis moans, throwing his head back, before following him. He watches Spider Man throw the goon over his shoulder. “Where are you taking him?”

 

“Somewhere more private, where innocent bystanders won’t be traumatized,” He hisses. 

 

“I think… you’re upset with me,” Louis comments. Spider Man replies by shooting his web and swinging out of the science exhibit. “Oh, I can almost feel the hatefuck that’s gonna happen,” Louis says to himself before chasing after Spider Man on foot, gun still stuck to his hand.

 

In the middle of Harry’s interrogation, he senses someone before he sees the elevator doors on the rooftop open and Deadpool coming out of the lift with a cup of tea. “Really?” Harry says with exasperation. 

 

“It was free,” Louis replies. “You can’t live in New York and pass up on free stuff, Web Slinger. Have you gotten anything out of him yet?” He sips his tea, some of it going into his mouth, the rest soaking through his suit and running down his chin. He hopes that Spider Man has a thing for real messy people. 

 

Harry sighs and shakes his head. Deadpool comes closer and drops his cuppa. “Well, duh! You haven’t put a scratch on this dude!” He exclaims. He turns to Spider Man and places his gloved hands on his cheeks. “Listen… I’m proud of you for fighting the patriarchal view that we, as men, must be overly aggressive and violent. But right now, it’s necessary, Spidey, because I need to beat the absolute shit out of Ajax when we find him.”

 

“Faggots,” they both hear the goon mutter. Deadpool pauses as he looks at the man before turning back to Harry.

 

“It’s extremely necessary that I kick his ribs in now. So please don’t stop me,” Deadpool says. He goes to do that but feels Spider Man grab his arm. He turns around and sees that he’s conjured up a lead pipe. He hands it over encouragingly. Deadpool gasps and places a hand over his heart before taking it and going to town. “Where is your fucking boss?” He shouts before hitting him again in quick succession. “Tell me where that dish-soap-named fuck is! Or I’ll kill you! I’ll kill you with my bare, pansexual hands! Where is Francis!”

 

“Pool,” Harry hisses before hushing him. “You need to pipe down.”

 

Deadpool freezes and drops the lead pipe. He turns his attention to Spider Man and brings his hands to his cheeks. “Was that a pun? Was that pun intentional? Did Spider Man finally share a joke with me?” He asks giddily. 

 

“Pool!” Spider Man screams as the goon shoves him and he goes over the roof’s edge. Harry’s heart pounds several times in the few seconds it takes for him to shoot his web to catch Deadpool. He yanks at his web until Deadpool is able to climb back onto the rooftop. 

 

“God, imagine if you were a split second late on that web shooting and I hit the floor or something before you caught me and died,” Deadpool says. Harry raises an eyebrow underneath his mask. “That would be like… the worst movie ending. Anyway, we have a bad guy to catch.”

 

Harry knows that he’s about to fling himself off the rooftop intentionally this time and he stops him. Deadpool huffs before getting onto his back, “If you think my gun is poking you in the back, it isn’t. It’s my sword. Not the ones on my back though.”

 

They get to the sidewalk, run around the block, and see nothing out of place, hear nothing out of place. “Fuck, did we lose him?” Louis deflates. Spider Man shrugs, equally as disappointed. “Well… It’s not the worst thing to have happened. Francis will always hire more goons and we’ll eventually get information out of one of them.”

 

“I guess you’re right,” Spider Man replies. He then realizes they’re both walking along the cement. But he doesn’t point it out. 

 

“We’ve been fighting alongside each other for months now--”

 

“ _ I’ve _ been fighting,” Harry corrects him. “You’ve been killing.”

 

“Okay! Anyway. Why are you going after Francis?” Louis asks. 

 

“Because… He’s trying to create an army of mutants, Pool. I had some of his goons come after me once to figure out how Spider Man came to be. I managed to figure out he hired them and I knew that he’d try to either capture me again or find irradiated spiders, which is what they tried to do today.”

 

“Until I stopped them!” Deadpool whoops. Harry smiles underneath his mask. 

 

“What about you?” He asks. “Why are you after Francis?”

 

Deadpool rolls his head along his shoulders, stretching out his tense neck. “Well, it all started when I was diagnosed with cancer,” Louis says. “Stuff happened and somewhere along the line, I had to snap my friend’s neck to put him out of his misery because of him and he ripped out my heart. So we’re not on good terms.”

 

“He ripped out your heart?” Harry asks. “Literally or metaphorically?”

 

“Oh, literally,” Louis replies. “I wouldn’t let anyone but you metaphorically rip out my heart, you hunk.”

 

“Sometimes I think we shouldn’t work together because you’ll be too distracted by your crush on me,” Harry says cheekily.

 

“I already am and I haven’t died yet.”

 

“That’s because you can’t die.”

 

“That… Is true,” Louis can’t deny it. They walk in silence for a few moments until Louis adds, “I have the feeling this walk is going to turn our entire relationship around like maybe you’ll figure out how much you love me and that there’s a reason we both wear the same shade of red. We’re soulmates, Spidey.”

 

“I don’t think that’s how that works,” Spider Man chuckles. “And I need to know you before I realize I’m ‘madly’ in love with you. All I know right now is that your name is Deadpool and you’re… crazy.”

 

“Crazy in love,” Louis replies. “One of my favorite Yoncé songs.”

 

Harry snorts, “Mine too. Do you need a lift home?” 

 

“No, it’s alright, Daddy Long Legs. I’ll catch a taxi. But you should think about it. We’d be the cutest red-suited boyfriends ever.”

 

Harry swings into his room, yanking off his mask as soon as he’s in the privacy of his house. The thud he makes is loud so he moves quick to take off his suit and get into some sweatpants. He doesn’t have time to pull on a shirt before there’s a knock at his door. “Harry, are you alright?” He hears from the other side.

 

Harry walks to the door and unlocks it. He opens it to see Liam there, dressed in red plaid over a white shirt and denim jeans. “Yeah, I’m fine,” Harry answers. “Was just taking a nap, kind of fell out of bed.”

 

“Okay. Well, my mom and dad have dinner downstairs if you’re hungry.” 

 

As they’re walking down the steps, Liam asks, “Did you go to the science exhibit today?” 

 

A beat passes before Harry answers, “No. I must’ve forgot about it. Why?”

 

“Some crazy stuff happened. It’s on the news.”

 

Sure enough, as Harry sits at the dinner table with Liam and his family, he sees a hazy photo of Deadpool in action. The video that comes after it is shaky but he sees the mercenary in all his uncontained glory, swinging from the sun to Mercury to Venus and then to the moon as bullets follow his trail. Harry can’t stop the giggle that leaves his lips when the news anchor repeats the pun that Deadpool said while hanging from the moon. “He’s really one of a kind, ain’t he?” Liam’s father, Geoff, says, pointing his fork in the direction of the television. Harry nods with a smile. 

 

Louis comes through the front door of his shared home and is hit with the smell of marijuana. “Where is Snoop Dogg?” Louis asks as he steps into the living room, finding Niall and Zayn smoking on the couch. He hates it when the two smoke. Not because he has anything against smoking weed but because he’s always left out and the smell just becomes bothersome since he gains no pleasure from it. “How stoned are you two right now?” He asks before sitting on the coffee table in front of them.

 

“Pebbled,” Niall answers as he passes the pipe over to Zayn. 

 

“Fucking fantastic,” Louis says as he pulls off his boots. He rubs his gloved hands together before he starts his story, “Spider Man finally made a joke around me. So I think it’s time to plan the wedding.”

 

Niall laughs, “You guys won’t even get to the first date! And you know it. Your dumbass is going to freak out. Stop joking.” 

 

Louis takes off his mask and Niall does that little jolt he always does. “Do I look like I’m joking?” Louis asks.

 

“You don’t even look alive” Niall replies. “Fuck, you’re still not easy to look at. There’s just so much… going on. You look like a fleshy moon, just… craters everywhere.”

 

“When Spider Man facefucks you, is he gonna fuck your mouth or your craters?” Zayn butts in, making Niall cackle. Zayn smiles smugly as he pushes his sunglasses further up his nose.

 

“How come even after smoking weed, you’re still the biggest fucking asshole?” Louis huffs. “I hate the both of you. Please… do something worse. Like heroin or meth.”

 

As Louis leaves the living room, he hears Niall call out, “But then we’ll look like you!”

 

-

 

“Can I help you find anything?” Harry shuts his book with a startle before turning to the library hand, who’s looking at him with a smile.

 

Harry looks away from the helper’s deep brown eyes and looks at the cover of his neuroscience book. “Uh. N-no, I’m good, I think,” Harry stutters. He stupidly points to his book and the helper smiles.

 

“Alright, just don’t hesitate to ask if you need anything,” He says before walking away, sending a wink in Harry’s direction. Harry watches his path, looking for anything that points to why he approached Harry of all people, any signs that he’s met him before. But he doesn’t find anything that matches the same mannerisms as the crass, red-suited man he fights beside. 

 

Liam comes up behind him and startles him once more. “You looking at someone?” Liam asks, adjusting the books under his arm.

 

“No…,” Harry answers as he opens his book again. 

 

“Alright, well, are you ready to go? We should probably get home soon,” Liam adds. Harry nods, it sounds like a good idea. It’s been a week since he and Deadpool let a goon go. It’s been too silent and Harry feels on edge waiting for something to happen. 

 

As Liam gets his book checked out, Harry feels something. He senses danger, and it tingles up his spine. 

 

He shoves Liam aside as soon as he hears the engine of a car that’s moving too fast. Harry jumps over the checkout counter as debris flies throughout the library when a car breaches through the entrance. Harry peeks over the counter once he deems it safe to. No one looks harmed, thankfully. 

 

The sunroof of the car opens with a low hum and out pops the red-suited man Harry was thinking of only moments before. “That wasn’t a drive-thru,” He quips. Harry didn’t expect anything less. “Stay calm, everyone. But it’s really, really important that you all run away as fast as you can. So if you could-”

 

Deadpool disappears into the car. There’s grunts and shouts coming from the car before there’s one, two, three gunshots and then silence. Harry knows that Deadpool can’t die but that thought doesn’t stop his heart from falling to his stomach. Harry doesn’t have to suffer in suspense much longer because Deadpool reappears again.

 

He hops out onto the roof and walks down the windshield. But when he’s on the hood, he’s launched into the wall behind Harry because another car has decided to use the blocked off entrance. “Fuck,” Deadpool groans as he rolls around on the floor, disturbing all the debris underneath him. He stops. “Did you see that?” He asks with his attention on Harry, who’s frozen. He’s never been this close to Deadpool without his suit on. “Please tell me you didn’t see that. You’re so good looking.”

 

Harry shakes his head, following along. Deadpool gets to his feet and places his hands on his hips. “Great. How about after this we go down t-”

 

“Pool!” Harry screams as he hears the bullet of a shotgun being fired and then the fleshy sound of it piercing through Deadpool’s body. It paints the wall he was shot into seconds ago in red and bits of his tissue. This time when he’s on the ground, he doesn’t move. “Deadpool?”

 

His eyes widen and he gasps, jumping to his feet even though his middle is in much pain. “Oh shit!” He yelps as he gets out his two pistols and just shoots in the general direction of the bad guys. He manages to kill them but there’s something different about his composure that isn’t the Deadpool Harry knows. He’s too fidgety and skittish for the mercenary who says clever one-liners. He screams a lot as if to release the agitation inside of him. Harry doesn’t know what’s wrong with him. But he still seems to have the situation at hand under control, as under control as Deadpool can manage. 

 

Liam comes crawling around the corner of the counter and scoots up next to Harry. “Are you alright?” He asks, grabbing onto Harry’s bicep. He nods as the scuffling behind them finally ceases. 

 

He decides to look over the counter and only sees bodies left behind. There’s no Deadpool. He’s left without a word and Harry doesn’t think that’s very much like him. 

 

“He’s hot!” Louis moans, bending himself over Zayn’s lap. He’s unimpressed, as always. 

 

“There’s 8 million people in New York, Louis. Chances are it wasn’t even him,” He replies. 

 

“It was though! It was,” He argues. He sits up and moves himself off of Zayn’s lap. He squeezes the olive couch cushions with his hands, “There’s no other voice in America that can make my dick twitch like his. Christ, it was him, Zayn. It was that same twitch! And he was fucking… perfect. It felt like I finally fucking died and went to heaven--”   
  


“You wouldn’t end up in heaven,” Zayn mutters as he sips at his nearly cold coffee. 

 

“--And he was an angel. An angel who could do devilish things to me in bed,” Louis adds. He stands up and spins on his heels to face Zayn. “If Project Hatefuck doesn’t work, then there’s nothing else. He’s too good looking to even consider being with me. I look like a fucking piece of beef.”

 

Zayn cracks a smile at that. Louis hates him. “I wish you looked like a piece of pork so it’d be haram for me to associate with you,” Zayn replies. 

 

“I’ll beat you with your white cane, blindy,” Louis replies as he begins to walk away. “Don’t test me.”

 

He hears a loud clack and then finds himself with his chin on the floor, his feet hooked on Zayn’s white cane. “‘Blindy’ would beat your ass,” Zayn huffs from above him. He stands from the couch and walks to their kitchen. Louis gets himself up and follows. “Listen, you either gotta get over Spider Man or stop acting like a fucking idiot for 10 seconds and tell him how you feel. If he’s stupid enough, he’ll feel the same way and you guys can blow each other in some alley.”

 

“That sounds boring though. I want… a spectacular start to our love story,” he sighs dramatically. “Something… incredible… something you’d never find in a Nicholas Sparks book.”

 

“Well, you’re both already masked vigilantes and you look like you were deep fried so it’s already pretty original,” Zayn mentions as he turns on one of the burners on their stove. “There are teenagers writing fanfiction as we speak.”

 

“You’re probably right,” Louis agrees. 

 

When they get home, Harry is met with hugs and kisses from Liam’s parents, who were so worried when Liam didn’t pick up his phone but understood when he pulled it out of his pocket with its dead, shattered screen. Harry is dismissed long before Liam because although Geoff and Karen love him very much, Liam is their blood and the son they almost lost at birth. Harry could never ever expect to mean half as much as Liam does to them.

 

When he shuts the door behind him, he locks it and throws off his backpack. He does the latches on the wooden chest in front of his bed and pulls his suit out of it. 

 

“Where,”  _ punch _ , “the fuck,”  _ punch _ , “is Francis!” Louis shouts into the bloody face of another goon. He’s seriously busted his lips and he won’t stop until they’re literally on his knuckles. 

 

He doesn’t realize he’s said this out loud until another voice says, “That’s graphic.” The same voice from all those nights of taking down Francis’s men and the same voice from the library. Louis turns around to see his silhouette against the orange streetlight, his tall body with broad shoulders and slim yet soft hips, thighs thinner than Louis’s but toned just the same. Knowing that underneath his mask and suit he has green eyes and plump pink lips, a few tattoos on his arms, and trimmed curls that stop at his ears is enough to kill Louis. 

 

Louis doesn’t realize that he hasn’t replied until his internal monologue over Spider Man’s beauty finally stops and a voice in his head finally tells him to  _ say something, idiot _ . “Graphic is my middle name,” Louis says dumbly, already hating it as soon as it leaves his lips. Who even fucking says that anymore? “No, it’s actually William.” He smacks himself and Spider Man sharply inhales. 

 

“Are you okay?” He asks.

 

“I’m fucking jolly,” Louis answers. He stops, puts his hands on his hips, and takes a deep breath. He raises his hand, gesturing to the man heavily chained to the chair. He’s learned from their last mistake, Harry notes. “I caught a goon… He may have been damaged a little through… the shipping and handling.”

 

“Maybe he should’ve had ‘fragile’ stamped on his forehead,” Harry replies. He takes in all the details of the man’s appearance, tilting his head when he sees the little white edge sticking out of the pocket in his vest. “What’s this?” He asks to no one in particular as he nears the goon and quickly slips it out. He steps back into place beside Deadpool, using the illumination of the streetlight behind them to see. It’s a photo of children and a woman. Next to the woman, they see the man before them right now.

 

He has a family and it makes something heavy settle in Harry’s stomach. Before he can say anything, Deadpool snatches the photo from him. Harry thinks he knows his aim and he grabs Deadpool by his bicep before he decides to open his mouth. Harry leads Deadpool further down the alley until they’re out of earshot of the goon. “What?” Deadpool hisses.

 

“I…,” Harry doesn’t know what to say without coming off too soft. But fuck it, he decides he doesn’t care. He’d rather be soft than an apathetic asshole. “We’re not hurting his family. We’re not going after his children and wife, Pool.”

 

“I was never going to fucking touch his kids,” Louis replies, shocked that Spider Man would think that he’s that kind of person. “I was just going to use them as leverage. I would never hurt a fucking kid, Spidey. What the fuck.”

 

“Okay, good,” Harry sighs in relief. “And we’re not killing him. We’re letting him go after this.”

 

“You’re killing me. Fuck. Fine,” Louis reluctantly agrees to his terms before they make their way back. He throws another punch without warning, even Harry’s a little startled by it. “Where the fuck is Francis? Tell us or I will hurt your little boy here,” Louis threatens emptily, pointing at one of the children in the photo. It takes a few more punches but eventually they get some information out of him which is a start. 

 

Louis undoes the chains wrapped around the goon and drops them around his feet. He waves goodbye as the man stands up and begins to run for his life. “Thank you, come again,” Louis calls out. He walks over to the dumpster against the alley wall, grabbing his concealed duffel bag and placing it on his shoulder. He puts the chains into his duffel with a sigh. 

 

“I’m sorry, Pool. I didn’t want to let him go,” Harry says, “but--”

 

“We had to,” Louis finishes for him. “I know. He has a family and they need him. I know. I’m not going to hold it against you. But please… Don’t be that soft in bed.”

 

Before he decides to start walking away, Harry says, “Thank you.”

 

“Don’t thank me… I’m not going to hold it against you now. But later, I’m going to let the whole world know Spider Man is a kind-hearted bitch who loves children,” He replies. “And it’s going to fucking ruin you.”

 

Harry giggles, and all Louis wonders is how his face looks when he smiles. He figures he could imagine it pretty well but he also figures it wouldn’t compare to the actual thing. That reminds him. 

 

Louis asks, “How old are you?” And holds his breath. 

 

Spider Man pauses before answering, “I’m 20.”

 

Louis sighs in relief. “Good, good. It hit me earlier that I… could be crushing on a baby. That would’ve been really gross on my part no matter how good you are at crime fighting in spandex,” He says. “I’m 22, just in case you thought you were crushing on an old man. Fear not, I’m young and wild and free. And it’ll be awhile before I get erectile dysfunction.”

 

“That’s hot,” Spider Man replies sarcastically as they walk out of the alley. “Anyway, want to go hunt down this safehouse?” 

 

“Don’t have homework to do? What’s your bedtime?” Louis asks, placing a hand on his hip like a parent with a child attempting to stay up late. Harry hits his side with the back of his hand.

 

“Cut it out, Pool,” Harry chuckles. “Your dentures might fall out.”

 

It’s empty. Louis looks around the building, noticing how eerily similar it is to the same place where he was tortured by Francis. He sees the examination tables, the translucent vinyl curtains, the grime. The dying energy from people being there just minutes earlier is still buzzing through the room, Louis can feel it. They were close. And they were too late. 

 

Louis growls as he flips the table nearest to them, all the abandoned items on it hitting the floor with it. He runs over and pushes over a large file cabinet, not satisfied enough with the way it crashes. He doesn’t even fucking know what he’s doing but his need to express some rage overtakes him. 

 

It’s when he’s clawing at a bulletboard that Spider Man grabs him by his arms and tries to spin him around. Louis shoves him away successfully and tries to do more damage. This time, he hears Spider Man shoot his web and feels his feet sliding along the floor. “Pool, calm down,” Spider Man says from behind him. His arms are wrapped tightly around Louis’s waist, their bodies slotted together. He’d definitely make a sex joke if he weren’t so upset. 

 

“No, let go of me,” Louis huffs as he tries to escape. He ends up on the floor with Spider Man’s knee pressing into his lower back. 

 

They stay like that for several, silent moments until Louis’s breathing has evened out and Harry asks, “Going to fuck up the room again?”

 

“I’m going to fuck you up,” Louis replies with a halfhearted venom. He feels the pressure against his back disappear. He rolls over and sits up, bringing his hands to face and taking a deep breath to release whatever stress is still inside of him. “Sorry,” he mumbles.

 

“It’s okay,” Harry replies softly. He doesn’t try to force it out of him. He figures Deadpool will tell him how he feels if he wants, and if he doesn’t, that’s okay too. 

 

Louis clears his throat. “I just really want to stop him,” He says.

 

“You will,” Harry assures him. “We will. First, we have to look around this building, see if we can find anything to help us.” 

 

The lights are dim and the house is quiet when Louis gets home. His bones don’t actually ache but he feels like they do when he doesn’t even remember how long it’s been since he came home to someone he loved. He’s not saying that he wouldn’t take a bullet for Zayn, he’d take many. He’d die for him if he could. But his platonic love for him just doesn’t compete with the feeling he gets when he loves someone romantically and the feeling is mutual. He’s yearning for that feeling again. 

 

His skin crawls with how much he wants it. His horribly scarred skin, the source of his constant insecurity.

 

He doesn’t turn on any lights in his bedroom. He strips off his suit in the moon’s illumination and crawls into bed, immediately curling into a ball. He feels his bumpy skin underneath his fingertips and it all hurts. 

 

-

 

Harry sits back in his seat and looks around the lecture hall as the professor speaks. He does this a lot, thinking that through analyzing the movements of other people, maybe he’ll find an anomaly. Maybe he’ll know which one will have their moral compass waived in the future. It’s ridiculous because he’ll never really know but being on watch always brings him more comfort when he’s surrounded by many people. 

 

In the past, sometimes the professor would catch him not listening for a moment. He stopped after every attempt at putting Harry on blast failed because when he’d ask a question about the topic they were on, Harry always knew the answer. He smirks thinking about it.

 

Liam catches him on his way out. “Hey, bro,” he greets, squeezing Harry’s arm. 

 

Harry’s a little occupied with turning on his phone as he says, “Hey, Liam.” And it’s hard for him to carry on the conversation when his phone begins to wildly buzz in his hand.

 

“Who is that?” Liam asks with a chuckle. 

 

“Uh, a friend,” Harry answers. The only contact name that pops up is the skull emoji followed by the poo emoji and an L. “Hey, I actually have to go back and finish a test.”

 

Liam raises an eyebrow as they stop their trek. “Harry Styles didn’t finish a test?” He says. “You must be talking shit. You’re usually done before anyone else.”

 

Harry chuckles and shakes his head. “It was a hard test. I figured everyone else just gave up while I actually tried,” Harry adds. “Um, I’ll meet you at home.”

 

“Deadpool?” Harry calls out as he slowly lowers himself into the room, upper half first. He holds tightly onto his web as he looks around the room for the other red-suited man. “Pool?”

 

“Over here!” The familiar voice responds, sending relief he didn’t know he lost back into his body. Harry flips back onto the floor, landing on his feet as he goes to follow the voice. “What’s up, Daddy Long Legs?” Harry finds him in the corner of the next room, lying on the floor with his arms and legs all pointing in impossible directions. “It was kind of hard to text you with broken bones, and Siri hardly understands what the fuck I’m saying through this mask.”

 

“Try to fight the bad guys without me?” Harry takes a seat beside him. 

 

“Yes, and that was my first error. Fighting,” Louis says. “Killing is more… Permanent, keeps them from coming up behind you. I don’t know how you do it, Spidey.”

 

“Having web-shooters helps,” Harry replies with a tilt of his head. Deadpool sighs.

 

“Well, at least I can say I tried it and got all of my limbs snapped.”

 

When he heals, Harry helps him to his feet. He holds onto Deadpool and even though he’s sure he won’t collapse, he still holds onto him. It’s all a little heady for Louis. “Don’t go out looking for trouble without me,” Harry says. It comes out much softer than he expected it to.

 

Louis feels his heartbeat pick up. This might be the moment they finally kiss. “It’s not like… I’m going to get myself killed, Web Slinger. I thought we established I can’t die,” He replies with a voice that shakes only slightly. He feels the hand on his back slightly dig its gloved fingers into his flesh.

 

“But… I know it still hurts,” Harry adds. “Right? You still feel it.”

 

“I do feel it,” Louis confirms but he doesn’t even remember what they’re talking about. Everything in his head is floating, it seems. Spider Man makes him feel like that. “Do you think it’s possible… to kiss through masks?”

 

“Want to try it?” Harry asks cheekily. 

 

“Fuck yes,” Louis answers. “Using tongue would be a bad idea, right?”

 

“Probably.”

 

Louis places his hands on Harry’s waist just as he places his hands on Louis’s face. He pulls him close and they press their clothed lips together. This may have thrown a wrench in Project Hatefuck but started something much better. Louis doesn’t know if the electricity zipping up his spine is excitement or fear.

 

The kiss is awkward because there’s no actual skin to skin contact, no saliva being exchanged, but it’s so so lovely. Harry really doesn’t expect the gunshot and shattering glass that comes during it. He jumps away from Louis, getting into defense mode, until he realizes it’s Louis holding the gun with it pointed at the windows. “What the fuck, Pool?” He hisses.

 

“Sorry, we didn’t have fireworks or anything. I wanted to improvise,” Louis replies as more glass hits the floor. Harry sighs helplessly and shakes his head. “And I got a little nervous. When I get nervous, I always go for my guns,” he admits as he finally lowers it and puts it back in its holster.

 

“Why would you get nervous around me?” Harry asks with a chuckle, taking a step towards him. 

 

“Because… I don’t know what this means for us and you haven’t seen me,” Louis responds. He becomes Master of Vagueness when he’s feeling a little pressured to open up. Does he just tell him? Does he just say that the experiment Francis did on him left him horribly disfigured that he cannot love himself and can’t expect anyone else to when they see him?

 

“What do you mean? I’ve seen you. I’ve… literally seen your insides, Pool. I’ve seen more than I’ve wanted to see, I’ll admit, but I like you,” Harry says. “And we’ll figure out what this means for us.”

 

Louis groans and spins around, flailing his arms. “You don’t understand,” Louis continues. “Fuck. Fuck! I just shouldn’t have said anything. I fucked up a perfectly good moment.” One of the voices in his head agrees with him while the other tells him to cut himself some slack. He doesn’t know which one to trust.

 

“It’s okay,” Harry reassures him. “Let’s go somewhere. Just talk. Not about this if you don’t want to. But other things.”

 

“Talk? Okay. Yeah. I can talk a lot.”

 

Louis holds tightly onto Spider Man’s middle as he crawls up the side of some large, random building. He ponders what life would be like if Spider Man was actually more spidery than he is. Louis bets he’d still love him if he had 8 arms and more than two eyes. 

 

Harry turns his head over his shoulder to check on Louis. “Are y- Are you taking selfies?” He asks. 

 

“How else am I gonna prove to my friends that I rode Spider Man?” Louis says. 

 

Once they reach the roof, they climb the billboard on it and sit with their backs against it. “Fuck… Oh fuck, are we going to watch the sunset together?” Louis asks, clapping his hands in excitement. “Shit, this is so fucking romantic, Spidey.” 

 

Harry gives him a thumbs up since he can’t smile through his mask. “So… what friends were you talking about earlier?” He asks, trying to start a new conversation where he can finally get to know him. He knows the masked mercenary but he wants to know a bit about the person away from that. He doesn’t expect them to be drastically different though. 

 

“My pals, Zayn and Niall. Zayn’s blind.” He doesn’t know how they get to it but somehow he’s admitting to being the worst friend to the both of them. “--And I locked him in there for a few hours. But he didn’t even look bothered when I took him out, which kind of annoyed me because the point of putting him in a room with sharp things inside of it is to get hurt. And… One time, I stabbed Niall in the leg because he beat me in a video game. Basically! I’m a terrible friend.”

 

Spider Man giggles beside him, and fuck, he’s cute. “I’m glad you’re honest,” He says as if the makes up for everything. But he said it so Louis almost believes it. “I just want to know you without invading your secret identity.”

 

“My identity isn’t a secret, Web Slinger,” Louis replies like a challenge. He reaches over and places his index finger underneath Spider Man’s cihin. “My name is Louis William Tomlinson.”

 

“Pool, you can’t just--”

 

“But I just did,” Louis says smugly. “There’s no reason for me to really hide. No one would ever come after someone I love because there’s so few and they all know how to protect themselves. Zayn has literally fucked shit up worldwide and I was hired to assassinate him a long time ago. I didn’t, obviously. But yeah, I’m not hiding.”

 

Spider Man just nods. “I have to. I have… an adoptive family and they’re all nice, normal people. I couldn’t risk getting them hurt,” He says. “My step brother, Liam, he’s great. He was the first person I came out to as bisexual even. He just said like all the right things, all the things I needed to hear that night. And his parents are literally unreal with how nice they are, you kind of understand how it is that Liam came out the same.”

 

“... What happened to you biological parents?” Louis dares to ask.

 

“I don’t know,” Harry answers. “They were scientists that just like disappeared. There’s a lot of… things I’ve been told that don’t add up. I’m just trying to get myself to give up on it. What about you?”

 

Louis holds his breath again. The voices in his head argue whether to tell the truth because  _ he’ll accept it no matter what _ or to mold the truth into something more acceptable because  _ no one wants to hear about it _ . He tries to get them to shut up and come up with his own decision. Surely, if he and Spider Man are to become red-suited, vigilante boyfriends, they have to be honest with each other? “Well, my mom died of cancer and I was given to my dad who had abandoned us years before. He was a dick, kind of liked to do bad stuff to me,” Louis replies, poking at the different textures of his boot, and lets that hang in the air between them. 

 

“Fuck, I’m so sorry,” Harry nearly gasps, hating himself for even asking. Something curls in his stomach thinking of Deadpool going through things like that.

 

Louis just shrugs, “Worst things have happened.” Harry scoots over, eliminating any space between them before putting an arm around Louis. “Did I fuck up the moment again?”

 

“No,” Harry denies softly. 

 

“Alright, cool,” Louis says. “Do you want to hear more fucked up shit about me? It’ll be a good time.”

 

Harry can’t say no. As the sun continues to lower, Louis tells him of his life just a few years before he became Deadpool. He tells him about his girlfriend, Eleanor, and how they met when they were teenagers. They grew close because of the pain they endured as children, found comfort in each other, and were very committed to spending their lives together. Adults found them stupid and naive because of it. 

 

They were ready to be married until everything went wrong. The cancer he didn’t even know he had in his body had spread and had become too much to effectively fight against. Louis couldn’t bear the thought of putting the love of his life through his own suffering so he left when he had the chance. 

 

It was probably one of the hardest things he’d ever done. He jumped into the unknown, gave up his life of security so he wouldn’t have to put her through that. He allowed his fear of being alone to move back into the corner of his brain it inhabited before Eleanor came into his life.

 

The first window of hope he had was opened by Francis, who obviously kept him alive but created a grotesque monster. He couldn’t go back to her but he still did. He remembers standing outside the apartment that was theirs one time and seeing three people come out. His girlfriend, another man, and a tiny human carried in a car seat. The worst part was that Louis knew that baby couldn’t have been more than a few months old, and Louis had only been gone for about a year. 

 

She had moved on and his daughter would never know him. “But that’s probably for the best because I am so not the father type, you know?” Louis chuckles wetly. He’s lying. He knows that if it came to it, he’d be the best at it. It’s a lie he feeds himself so hopefully one day he can convince himself that he doesn’t wish for everything that never happened. “If I start crying, just ignore me.”

 

“De- Louis…”

 

“Please, it would be so embarrassing if you acknowledged it any more.”

 

This reminds Harry a lot of the day in the library when Deadpool was shot into the wall and asked if he had seen that. He doesn’t want Louis to be embarrassed of anything around him but he figures they can’t fix that all now. That’ll come in time. “Okay,” Harry says before turning his head back to the sunset. 

 

When the moon is high in the sky, they finally climb down the billboard. “Tomorrow, I’m picking at your brain,” Louis says when he hops off the ladder. Harry doesn’t point out that he didn’t have to do any picking, Louis did the venting himself. 

 

“Alright,” Harry chuckles as they reach the edge of the roof. “Do you want me to take you home?”

 

“No,” Louis answers. “I think I kind of want to walk. Maybe run into some muggers and start a fight with them. Need to express some rage.”

 

“Please keep the murder to a minimum,” Harry begs before wrapping a tight arm around Louis’s waist and throwing the both of them off the building, shooting a web before they bloody up the sidewalk. He lets go of the web the second their feet safely touch the concrete. 

 

“I can’t give you everything, Spidey.”

 

Harry nods, “You can give me a goodbye kiss though.”

 

Louis looks behind him, sees the shadow the building next to them casts. “Okay… Without masks,” he breathes before he steps back into the darkness. Harry follows him into it, getting his fingers under the edge of his mask before he’s fully masked by the shadow. 

 

“Please don’t stab me.”

 

“No, that comes later,” Louis replies as he places his ungloved hands on Harry’s hips and holds him in place. His mask is off and even in this shade, he feels vulnerable like Harry might see him any moment now. 

 

He just doesn’t know what Harry would see, and his mind won’t let him think rationally about it. Harry could just see the man he’s interested in and find that he has something a little extra about him, something abnormal that will take some getting used to. But Louis doesn’t believe that’s what’ll happen. Harry’s going to see the scars that Louis can’t hide by just not talking about them, scars that don’t live in his mind but on his body for others to see. Harry’s going to see a disgusting monster and leave. He’s going to give Louis that same look that strangers on the street would give him when he went out. But when he leaves, it’ll hurt. It’ll tear Louis apart.

 

Louis drags his hands up until his fingertips dance along Harry’s skin. And it’s smooth. Harry doesn’t question it as Louis continues to examine his face with his fingers. 

 

“You feel pretty,” Louis whispers. He doesn’t say that he knows he’s pretty. He wouldn’t want him to feel unsafe by mentioning his identity isn’t completely secret. 

 

His heart beats in his ears as he tells himself it’s finally time to kiss him. He lifts his heels until he’s stood on his toes and kisses the pouty lips he’s been dreaming about, minding that his skin doesn’t touch Harry’s. He feels Harry’s hands on his lower back, pulling him closer. Louis dips his fingers into Harry’s hair and pleasantly hums, feeling how soft it is. He misses having hair.

 

The second the kiss ends, Louis puts his mask back on. “Get home now, Spidey,” Louis says. “It’s passed your bedtime.”

 

Harry chuckles before putting on his own mask, “Okay, I’ll go. Don’t miss me too much, okay?”

 

“Shut the fuck up. Go home.”

 

Louis hears him laughing as he gets a running start and shoots his web, swinging away with a loud whoop that echoes through the oddly quiet part of the city they’re in. 

 

\--

 

“What made you change your mind?” Louis asks as he sits on Spider Man’s back as he does push ups. They’re on another rooftop of another building.

 

“About?” His voice is steady, unaffected even though he’s been at it for awhile now. Louis would be a liar if he didn’t find it really hot. He’s probably got amazing stamina. In bed.

 

“About me. What made you finally realize that we’re soulmates, twin flames? That fate wanted us together?” Louis clarifies like it’s obvious. Harry snorts beneath him and Louis untucks one of his legs to gently kick his head. Harry retaliates by rolling onto his back, trapping Louis underneath him. Louis squawks as he wraps his legs around Harry’s middle and gets him into a headlock. “Tell me or I’ll give you a more fucked up version of the Itsy Bitsy Spider.”

 

“Let go or I won’t tell you.” Louis hisses before letting go. Harry smiles beneath his mask before turning himself around, getting them in a proper missionary position. Louis gets war flashbacks to that Spider Man porn and tries to push it out of his mind. 

 

“When did you change your mind about me?” Louis repeats. 

 

“I changed my mind… Well, I don’t know,” Harry starts. Louis huffs underneath him. “I don’t think I willingly changed my mind. It just kind of happened. I didn’t want to like you because god, you’re so annoying and reckless. You make me go crazy. I literally felt like I was fighting beside a child with guns and katanas when I first met you. Still feel that way, actually.”

 

“Okay, where does this get really romantic instead of crushing?” 

 

“Soon,” Harry replies. “You got under my skin, and I don’t know, I realized I liked having you there. There was no big moment, no epiphany. I always kind of liked you and I guess it was just time I stopped thinking it held me back.”

 

“Christ, that was romantic,” Louis breathes. He wishes it were possible for him and Harry to kiss whenever they pleased. But he’s also glad that their masks make kissing a bit more of a hassle because Louis would be kissing him all the time whenever they were in a dark place. “God, we’re the cutest crime fighting couple ever. You know why?”

 

“Why?”

 

“Because we’re not straight,” Louis says before turning them over to be the one on top. “Just a couple of pan and bi bros laying on a roof, falling in love. You know, I’d probably get a tattoo for you.”

 

“Yeah, of what?”

 

Louis rolls off of him, lying beside him instead. Spider Man props himself up on his elbow to look at him. Louis sighs, “I don’t know. Maybe like a fucking spider web, put it somewhere cool, not somewhere stupid like my shin or something.”

 

Harry smiles and is about to speak when he feels it again. The same sensation going up his spine. “Pool, we have to go.”

 

Harry swingings through the city with Louis on his back as they follow the sounds of sirens. They both feel the heat before they see it. The building being eaten by flames. “Duck your head, Pool,” Harry warns before they swing into the hot building through an open window. “We have to get everyone out.”

 

“Christ, it feels like I’m literally in hell,” Louis mutters to himself. He coughs a little before going in deeper, the heat grows more abrasive. “Who the fuck lights up an apartment building? What kind of asshole does this?”

 

Louis can’t help but feel a little impatient with the trapped people who are too afraid to leave the ‘safety’ of their closets. “You will literally die if you don’t come with me. Do you know how ovens work? Kind of the same thing, now c’mon,” and he yanks them out, guiding them to the window where Spider Man will take them down with kinder words. 

 

Bits of ceiling collapse before Louis even gets under it. He covers his face from the flying sparks and ash before tiptoeing around it. The smokiness of it all makes him consider calling Niall up for a barbeque later. 

 

He checks each apartment, making sure they’re clear before he finds one with its front door locked. He really hopes there’s no one in there thinking a locked door will save them from fire. He sighs before kicking right underneath the door knob twice and letting it slam open, possibly putting a dent in the plaster. But the building’s already on fire, no one’s going to be upset with him over a hole in the wall.

 

It’s empty. It’s untouched by everything but flame. The bed is done, there are no curtains in front of the windows, there is nothing to show for any human activity. Except a face-down framed picture on the nightstand.

 

Louis doesn’t like any of it but he closes in on the picture frame. He reaches out his hand and picks it up, bringing it close to see the image. 

 

Harry jumps back into the building, assessing the integrity of the structure. It’s probably going to start falling soon. “Pool?” He calls out, careful not to choke on smoke. There’s no response. “Deadpool?” He tries again as he begins to search. No response.

 

He peers into every room, each empty one crowding his chest with more anxiety. “Louis,” he says this time, “please don’t play games with me right now.”

 

He’s almost startled to find the red-suited man stood in a room with his back to him. “L-,” Harry then notices that he’s hitting himself in the face. “Louis, what are you doing?” He asks as he tries to grab his arm and get him to stop.

 

“I killed her,” Louis whispers, repeating it like a mantra as he continues to cause pain to himself. Harry hates himself for it but he knows the building is going to start falling apart. He needs to get Louis out of here before he can try to help him with anything else. He shoots web across Louis’s chest, capturing his arms under it, and throws him over his shoulder. Louis screams at him, begging him to leave him there.

 

Louis stops screaming eventually, just sniffles as the voices in his head do all the screaming for him. For once, they agree with each other. 

 

Harry doesn’t want to waste any time to figure out what’s going on in Louis’s head. He drops them off wherever he sees no people, which happens to be the small parking lot of some abandoned-looking store. Louis manages to tear through the web, which almost frightens Harry, and he throws himself onto the ground. Harry watches him get into the fetal position with something in his hand. “Louis, what is that?” He asks as he squats beside him. He cautiously reaches over and takes it. Louis doesn’t have anymore strength to do anything but hand it to him. 

 

Harry brushes the ash away and examines the picture. He sees a woman and man he’s never seen. But something in his gut tells him that that’s Louis and that woman beside him was his girlfriend before he became the masked vigilante he is today. The thing that really makes his stomach turn is the fact her eyes are scratched out. 

 

“I killed her,” Louis says again. He didn’t think that they’d ever be touched because he left them, never spoke of them. Thinking about Eleanor hurt, thinking about the daughter he didn’t even know he left behind made him shake with pain.

 

“You didn’t,” Harry argues. Louis jumps to his feet and grabs both of his guns. Harry knows that Louis would never shoot him but that doesn’t stop him from getting ready to dodge any bullets. He’s stressed, he’s afraid, Harry can’t blame him if he loses some sense. 

 

Louis does a 180 and shoots at the vacant store relentlessly until every window is shattered, until it looks like swiss cheese. Harry doesn’t interfere, he just watches the brass shells hit and roll around the blacktop until Louis runs out of ammunition. “We have to put all of this on hold and go after that asshole,” Louis seethes as he begins to walk in a circle. “We can’t waste any more time because if we waste any more fucking time, I’m going to fucking lose it,” he chokes on his words and more quietly says, “We have to catch him. Oh my fucking god, we have to kill him. That sick motherfucker.”

 

Louis takes a cab home. He had to insist he’d be alright, he just needs some alone time. He sits in the backseat, watching the city lights and people around him. It’s Adele’s voice spilling from the radio that gets him choked up again. He’s too embarrassed to risk revealing that he’s crying to ask the driver to change the station. But when a box of tissues is thrown into his lap, he realizes that his driver already knows. So he allows himself to cry a little louder.

 

“Project Hatefuck is postponed!” Louis announces the second he kicks open the front door. He rips off his mask. “Project Rip Out Francis’s Spine Through His Fucking Throat has commenced.”

 

He finds Niall and Zayn trying to building something in the middle of the living room. “We went to IKEA,” Zayn says, knowing that Louis has some questions. “I needed a new dresser.”

 

“You can’t build things,” Louis says. Zayn is very capable of most things but building is not one of them. Last time he tried to use a hammer, he managed to break two fingers with it.

 

“That’s why I have Niall,” Zayn points out. Niall presses the button on the power drill in his hand.

 

“Niall? Niall is the blindest, seeing person I’ve ever met,” Louis replies. “He’s no help to you.”

 

“Fuck off,” Niall mutters just before the dresser falls apart in front of them, falling apart just like the argument he had. 

 

Louis manages to round them into the couch and proceeds to tell them about Project Rip Out Francis’s Spine Through His Fucking Throat. “Wait, you think he killed Eleanor?” Niall asks. Louis nods casually, trying not to give away how much it really hurts to think about. “Shit, that fucking sucks so much. I’m sorry.”

 

“Me too,” Louis replies. “Spidey and I are going after him tomorrow. We might be gone for a while, we might never come back. If we don’t come back, assume he captured us or managed to kill us and go avenge us.”

 

Niall scratches his head in confusion, ruffling his chemically-processed blond hair, “Isn’t there a group of superheroes specifically for that?”

 

\--

 

Harry writes a note, telling his step family not to worry about his disappearance and that he’ll be back soon. Of course, he knows they’ll worry anyway.

 

He suits up, mask and all, and pulls on a sweater on top, even a beanie, because the mornings have gotten colder. He packs some clothing in a bag because he’s not sure how long Louis plans to search for Francis and he wouldn’t be able to live in his Spider Man suit for days. 

 

“Feeling better?” Harry asks when he lands in Louis’s front yard. Louis is suited up too, and like fate planned it, he’s also wearing a beanie. But he decided to be a little more stylish and wear some pink leg warmers too. 

 

“Oh, yeah,” He nods. “I stayed up all night trying to figure out where Francis might be. I also watched Marley and Me last night just to get it all out. Then I had Zayn beat the shit out of me so I think I’m okay.”

 

Harry nods before hugging him. “Is this too gay for you?” He asks. 

 

“No,” Louis answers as he hooks his chin on Harry’s shoulder. He grabs Harry’s biceps and shifts his hands from his back to his bum. “Now it is.”

 

They break away from the hug when they hear someone whistle but Harry keeps a hand on Louis’s lower back. “They were hugging and Spider Man had two handfuls of Louis’s ass,” Niall whispers to Zayn, whose arm is linked with his. “Louis’s actually proved us wrong.”

 

“Fucking… Mashallah,” Zayn sighs in relief as they walk over. “Nice to meet you, Spider Man. Whatever Louis told you about me is probably a lie.”

 

“If he told you he stabbed me in the leg, it’s true,” Niall says. “The scar is kind of cool though so I forgave him.”

 

Harry chuckles and nods. “Please call me Mr. Man,” Harry jokes as he shakes Niall’s hand. “I’m kidding.”

 

“Niall here is donating his car to our special cause,” Louis says before guiding Harry’s attention to the dingy, brown Mercedes in the driveway that’s older than all of the men stood there in the yard. “It smells like weed constantly after daily hotboxing, the bumpers a little fucked up because of said hotboxing and driving, and there are some suspicious stains but it works.”

 

Harry turns his head around just as someone walks by with their dog, gets a good look at the men in spandex, and keeps walking. It’s so foreign for Harry not to keep from being seen with people that aren’t in disguise. “Don’t worry, no one in this neighborhood cares,” Niall says. 

 

Harry’s throwing their bags on the floor of the backseat when he hears the hiss of a spray can and gets out to find Louis spray painting the car with red. He’s just painted the same Deadpool symbol on his belt buckle onto the truck of the car. Harry chuckles before stealing the can from him and spraying DP + SM onto the back window. He then draws a heart around it. Louis feels butterflies inhabiting his stomach. “Does the DP stand for Deadpool or double penetration?” He asks because he’s an asshole and can’t help but make everything into a joke.

 

“I’m sure both get you going,” Spider Man replies. Louis can’t believe this is his boyfriend.

 

“You’re so fucking right,” Louis says before raising his hand which Harry quickly high fives.

 

Louis starts up the engine and Zayn pokes his head into his window. “How long are you two going to be gone?” He asks. 

 

“I don’t know,” Louis sighs. “Going to miss me, Z?”

 

“Fuck no,” He replies as he straightens out his back. “Do you know how much I’m going to enjoy even just a single night of not hearing you masturbate and your fucking… dirty talk about Spider Man?”

 

Louis feels his face heat up under his mask, “Alright gotta go. Bye, Zayn. I hope I get killed so I never have to come back.”

 

As he pulls out of the driveway, Harry speaks up, “Louis--”

 

“No,” He immediately shuts him down. Harry giggles in his seat and reaches over to squeeze Louis’s thigh with his hand. He keeps it there. When they get on the highway, he asks, “Do you know where we’re going?”

 

“Bucks County, Pennsylvania,” Louis answers.

 

“Pennsylvania?”

 

“Yeah, I know right? I didn’t know it actually existed either,” Louis huffs as he moves into another lane.

 

Harry nibbles on his bottom lip, “How do you know he’s in Pennsylvania?” 

 

“Because sometimes uncontainable bouts of anger are actually helpful. Look in the glove compartment,” Louis commands, pointing to it. Harry does so and finds the haunting picture frame. Well, pieces of it, it seems. “In my moment of frustration, I chucked that picture frame so hard at Niall, missed, and shattered it. And I found the missing puzzle piece. Another fucking picture.”

 

Harry takes out the photo and sees that another photo is behind it. It depicts a green open field and on the back of it, it reads - _ Ajax _ and nothing more. “I scanned that fucker and Google told me it’s in Bucks County,” Louis adds. “God bless Pennsylvania if that’s where I finally snap Francis’s fucking neck.”

 

The CD Louis burned is great because even though every other song is Don’t Stop Me Now by Queen, Harry enjoys how theatrical he gets every time it plays. He doesn’t tire of it. This is when Harry’s glad he isn’t the one driving because he kind of just enjoys sitting and admiring what Louis’s like. He wouldn’t be able to do that and get them to Pennsylvania in one piece if he were the one driving. 

 

The traffic is terrible and almost doubles what the actual driving time should be. Night falls before they make it to Bucks County and Louis is sick of driving. “But I don’t want to waste time,” He says as he pulls over. 

 

“We won’t. We’ll only sleep until the sun comes up, okay? Your fighting won’t be good if you’re irritable and tired,” Harry replies as he removes his seat belt.

 

“But I’m always irritable and tired.”

 

“Yeah, sure. C’mon,” Harry says with a smile as he hops into the backseat. He lies down and Louis crawls into the small space beside him. “He’s not going to get away this time. I promise.”

 

Louis breathes in deeply, trying to believe those words the best he can. “You don’t have to sleep in your mask, you know,” He says. “It’s probably uncomfortable. I won’t look.”

 

“Okay,” and he carefully removes it, his hair feeling freer and cooler. “Louis?”

 

“Yeah, Daddy Long Legs?”

 

“I’m Harry.” 

 

The car is silent until Louis says, “Nice to meet you, Harry.” 

 

\--

 

Louis cuts off the engine when they reach the open field, the same one from the photo. Harry goes for their bags while Louis just looks at the tall grass along the seemingly endless plane. Harry comes up beside him. “Are you feeling what I’m feeling?” Louis asks. 

 

“The feeling a dog gets when they’re released in a big field?” 

 

Louis shuts his eyes and nods. “I’m gonna fucking do it,” he says and then he’s running with his arms in the air. Harry takes to just standing back and watching him, listening to him laugh. His smile only falls when Louis does. 

 

“Shit, fuck,” Harry mumbles as he hurries to Louis’s aid. He’s rolling around on the floor, holding onto his foot.

 

“I think I broke my fucking toe.” Harry nods, knowing there isn’t anything he can do to help but wait and let him heal. “Oh my fucking god. If I can’t kill Francis because of a fucking toe, I’m gonna… I’m gonna do something,” he adds, mind coming short of something extravagant and reckless. 

 

Harry finds the awkward bump in the ground that Louis tripped over and eyes it suspiciously. He kneels beside it and runs his hand over it, eroding the dirt that covers the metal handle underneath. “Louis…,” He whispers. 

 

Opening the trapdoor reveals steps that lead to a metal door. Louis turns to him. “Okay, in case you die in there and I can’t save you, you should probably admit you love me now or regret it in your last moments,” He says. 

 

“Okay, fine. I love you.”

 

Louis’s eyes widen. “Shit!” Louis shouts, bending over to dramatically heave. “I didn’t expect you to actually-- What the fuck, Harry? We’ve only been dating for like three seconds. We’re about to go into battle. You might die! You can’t just fucking--”

 

Harry pulls his mask up above his lips and then gets his fingers under Louis’s to do the same. He shuts his eyes as he kisses him in the daylight, respecting whatever reason it is for him not to show his face. He breaks the kiss and Louis immediately pulls his mask back down. “I’m not. I’m not leaving you,” Harry says as he conceals his lips. Louis nearly chokes because he’s never mentioned once to Harry that that’s his biggest fear. Being left. Being alone.

 

It clicks now that maybe it’s Harry’s fear too. Harry, who doesn’t know the reason behind the disappearance of his biological parents, is probably afraid of being abandoned just as much as Louis is. And in the time that they’ve fought alongside each other while living with this shared fear, they both grew willingly and unwillingly attached. They like each other, love even, but after the time they’ve shared, they became each other’s constants and could never go back. It’s enough to erase a bit of Louis’s fear of Harry leaving after he sees him. A bit.

 

They descend the stairs and near the door. Harry swallows the lump in his throat, realizing they can’t turn back now. This is it. “Is this… Is this a speakeasy door?” Louis hisses quietly as he examines the slot. “What the fuck is this? What year are we in?” Harry manages to crack a smile at that.

 

When a man slides open the door slot, Harry asks, “Did someone order two red-suited, nonheterosexual men?” And Louis punctuates his sentence with a bullet through the poor man’s face. 

 

Louis manages to fit his wrists through the slot and shoot wildly throughout the front room. He knows he’s hit someone whenever he hears a pained gasp and the sound of weight hitting the floor. It’s like music to his ears. “All I wanna do is,”  _ shot shot shot shot _ , “and ka ching. And take ya money,” Louis sings to himself before he takes out his arms to reload his pistols. Harry stands back with his fingers to his ears. “Jesus, you’re fucking adorable,” Louis sighs dreamily just as the door is opened and he jams his mag in place. He doesn’t even look away from Harry, just raises his arm and shoots whoever thought it was smart to come for them.

 

The front room is cleared out but the sound of marching men tell the pair that it won’t be for long. Harry leaps, getting his hands on the ceiling and lifting himself until he gets on all fours. He goes for the first trick he learned to do and shoots web just above the door’s threshold, watching grown men fall over like dominos after the first in line tumbles. Louis sends him a thumbs up.

 

Louis doesn’t waste any time or bullets on men who are taken down by a simple tripwire. And any chance of them becoming a problem later is eradicated when Harry takes initiative and covers them in his web. He jumps over the pile of bodies and Harry follows him from above. Louis calls from over his shoulder at the men squirming under Harry’s web, “Think of it as a bonding exercise!”

 

Harry jumps to the floor before they go through another doorway and the narrow corridor only goes left. Two men coming running down the hall to intercept their path to Francis armed with machine guns Louis recognizes as SIG 552 Commandos. They both raise their weapons but are soon left without them when Harry uses both of his web-shoots, his web latching onto the barrels, and yanks them out of their grasps. 

 

Louis picks one up and considers putting all of this on pause to kiss Harry again. But that’ll come later, he thinks, after they complete Project Rip Out Francis’s Spine Through His Fucking Throat. There’s going to be so much celebratory kissing. Even handholding. Louis can’t wait. 

 

He unleashes hell on the two men. Maybe it’s overkill how many bullets he wastes on them but there’s nothing that Louis loves more than overkill. Harry just has to look away though, which is probably what wills Louis to eventually stop. That, and that his gun is almost out of ammunition and another perfect twin of it is also at his feet, probably fully loaded. 

 

“After this, do you want to take dance lessons with me?” Harry asks as Louis picks up the gun and checks the magazine. God, it’s like every time he speaks now, Louis just loves him even more. They complement each other so well.

 

“Oooh. Can we learn like… flamenco?” Louis says. “I’ll wear the long, ruffled red dress.”

 

And they really do complement each other. Deeper in the tunnels, they have to fight more men. The slim hall should be a disadvantage for anyone but not for them. Harry takes to the ceiling and doesn’t do any killing. Just shoots his web to get the goons into an easy position where Louis can easily take their lives. 

 

Harry slings web onto a goon’s back and yanks him until he’s upside down. He shuts his eyes tight as Louis uses both of his trusty katanas to slice off his head like a large pair of scissors, painting the floor in his favorite color. Harry opens his eyes once he hears the head stop rolling.

 

He holds himself in the vertex of the hallway to avoid getting blood under his boots. “That was so fucking cool!” Louis exclaims as he steps right into the biohazard, waving around his swords. Harry shrugs. “God, get down here and hold my hand.”

 

Harry jumps down where there is no red and reaches out for Louis’s hand. “You have small hands,” Harry notes as he takes it. “You’re small.”

 

Louis snorts at that, Harry calling him small after he literally decapitated a man and swished his feet in his blood. They begin to walk. “Okay, listen,” Louis starts, “when I get in there, I’m going to need you to let me do all the talking. We’re going to have That Talk, you know? He addresses me by my name, I address him by his, and he tells me it’s been a while. You just stand back, keep away from pointy objects and bullets, and kick ass if he manages to take me down.”

 

Harry nods, “I… You can’t go down though because I… don’t think I could kill him. If you go down, we’re fucked.”

 

“Ah, your sweet, soft heart is one of my favorite things about you. I’ll forgive you if we’re fucked,” Louis coos, cupping his cheek. They reach a set of large doors that is definitely the entrance to Francis’s office. Louis scoffs, “Original.”

 

They both kick open a door and step inside the room. Harry can’t help but pump his fist and quietly whoop, “Yeah, power couple entrance!”

 

Francis is stood on a dais with his back towards the two men, looking over his table of monitors that survey every corner of his underground maze. He slowly turns around and Louis watches every twitch of his muscles through his gray A-shirt. It’s unfortunate that Louis hates his fucking guts. 

 

With a cocky smirk, Francis walks until he reaches the railing at the edge of the dais and rests his arms on it. “Here it fucking comes,” Louis whispers excitedly to Harry. Harry smiles underneath his mask at the way Louis actually bounces on his toes while they’re stood in the jaws of death.

 

“Louis,” He speaks, voice still carrying that accent that Louis has mocked so many times after their initial meeting.

 

Louis clears his throat before replying with, “Francis.”

 

“It’s been a long time,” he replies.

 

“Fuck,” Louis whispers again in glee because Francis is a cliche and is following the script perfectly. “It’s been awhile because you were hiding like a little bitch for years. And Bucks County? Really?”

 

Francis crosses the dais and starts coming down the steps, shaking his head with a smile. “Wasn’t hiding. Just had to figure out the proper way to destroy you. Eleanor, wasn’t it? You should’ve seen her, the both of them actually,” He starts. Louis feels everything inside of him starting to be stretched like a rubber band, and he’ll be ready to snap soon. “The way she screamed, and the way the little girl cried. Your little girl, isn’t that right, Louis?”

 

Harry watches Louis and curses God for masks because he doesn’t know what’s happening in his head. Francis knows, glances down at the tight fist Louis’s gloved hand is making and knows that he’s eliciting the response he wants so he continues. “If only you’d stayed, Louis. She could’ve been saved and your daughter wouldn’t be without both of her parents,” he clicks his tongue in false remorse. Louis is going to cut out his tongue and make him choke on his own blood. “You know, I thought you would’ve learned with it so fresh in your mind… not to endanger the ones you love, the ones you can lose.”

 

Harry feels that vibration move up his spine and he jumps, hands sticking to the ceiling before getting his feet there too. But he’s off by just a fraction of a second and a centimeter or two because the bullet shot from behind him grazes his side, carving into his skin. He feels blood seep out and he watches from the ceiling as it drips onto the floor. He’ll heal and be fine as long as he continues to avoid the bullets that are still fired in his direction.

 

“I didn’t really expect us to come out of this holding hands or anything,” Louis says. “But from one dick to another... Christ, you are  _ such _ a dick. And honestly, you look like a chode too.” He turns around to see the familiar woman in the room who’s shooting at Harry. “And you have… fucking Angel Dust shooting at my boy? You’re literally the worst host.”

 

Harry shoots his web to get the gun out of her grip and feels like he’s eliminated most of his problem until she jumps, grabbing him by his middle and throwing him onto the floor with incredible force. So much force, Harry’s sure it rattled his spine. “I really don’t want to hit you,” Harry says, holding up his hands in some kind of surrender. But she doesn’t acknowledge his words. She lifts him up and throws him into the wall. “Okay, got it,” he groans as he gets to his feet and then he clocks her. From the corner of his eye, he can see Louis going up against Francis. He wishes he could help to make it easier but for now, he has to deal with his own problem.

 

Louis moves his katanas wildly, hoping one of them will slice through flesh. He’s not planning on dragging any of this out because no satisfaction is brought from physically torturing a man who can’t feel pain. He can’t go back to his life before the experiments and all of his skin becoming scarred. He can’t go back and watch his little girl grow. He can’t go back and save Eleanor and give his daughter the one parent she deserves. 

 

Harry grabs Angel Dust’s hands and throws her, watches her land right on Francis’s table of monitors and go still. She won’t be a problem for a while. He turns to Louis just as Francis kicks him in the face and Louis rolls onto the floor from the impact, dropping one of his katanas. The way his sword clangs on the smooth cement floors gives Harry the same feeling nails on chalkboard do.

 

Harry watches in silent horror, unable to move, as Francis picks up Louis’s weapon and sinks it into his flesh hard enough to stick it into the cement floor underneath, skewering Louis to it. “You know, what her name is?” Francis asks as he grabs the handle of the katana and bends the blade before it shatters. Louis feels his blood heat up because this isn’t how he wants to learn the name of his daughter. “Addie. I heard Eleanor call her by that name. Addie,” he repeats again as he looks at his work. “Want to keep you alive for now, not done with you yet,” Francis says, spitting blood onto the ground beside Louis.

 

“You dumbass,” Louis groans as he lifts his head. “You can’t keep me alive ‘for now’. I’m always going to be alive.”

 

“Do you really think that?” Francis asks, voice condescending. “Well, I called in some favors, told Thanos you wouldn’t be a problem anymore,” he adds, glancing at Harry. He kneels beside Louis and grabs him by the back of his skull, making sure his eyes are on Harry too. “Watch this.”

 

He pulls out his own pistol and shoots. Harry isn’t quick enough this time. He drops to the floor with a yelp as his right side is punctured and pain overtakes his body. There’s hot red light behind his eyelids every time he shuts them. He thinks he can make out Louis yelling and boots stepping closer over the thunderous heartbeat in his ears.

 

Louis listens as Harry groans with every punch, watches his mask slowly begin to wear down against Francis’s knuckles. He has to help. Has to save one person from this entire mess.

 

Besides the one that has him skewered to the ground, he only has one other katana, which he has to slightly stretch for to reach. The katana in his back cuts further along as he grabs his katana with a ragged whimper. 

 

With his current position, he can’t get an effective throw. He looks to his left and then his right, finding nothing to help him in his current predicament. He has to do what he does best. 

 

Harry’s mask tears from the left side of his face and he sees Francis’s face with an uncovered, green eye. If Louis gets to see what he looks like underneath in his last moment, he figures that’s better than never.

 

Just when he’s ready to give up, he hears the sound of shattering glass and sees that Louis’s thrown his katanas into the small window of one of the doors they came through. “Improvise!” Louis yells out.

 

Harry thinks time stops as he uses whatever energy he has to shoot his web, aiming it for the butt of the pistol he removed from Angel Dust earlier. Any firearm feels foreign in Harry’s hands but he has no time to care about his own feelings. He doesn’t even have time to shut his eyes as he digs the barrel into Francis’s throat and pulls the trigger. The shot rings in his ears and he feels Francis body go heavy on top of him. He throws Francis off of him and gets to his feet, his adrenaline picking up. He stares through his worn down mask in disgust at the dead body of someone so vile, someone who went after Louis’s past and tried to take his future.

 

Louis watches in compulsion as Harry raises the pistol again. He’s not entirely sure it’s even the Harry he knows but some other version of him he hasn’t met.

 

Harry shot Francis to save himself but now he has to shoot again. He shoots for Louis, shoots for Eleanor, and shoots for Addie before he drops the gun. He drops too.

 

Louis groans loudly as he now tries to remove the katana from his back. He throws the bloody blade to the side and crawls over to Harry, blood marking his path. “Hey, Harry,” he greets airily, holding a hand over the wound that went through his stomach. Harry is in a similar situation, and now that his adrenaline is going low and his healing is a lot slower than Louis’s, it hurts. Louis sees the absence beginning to settle in his eyes and feels himself start to panick. But he keeps his voice low and steady. “Stay with me, yeah? Stay with me and let your healing do all the work. Stay with me. You said you’d stay with me… And we need to go to those dance classes and learn flamenco.”

 

“Louis,” Harry whimpers. “Are you sure about those classes? Because… I was thinking about it and… I’m going to step on your toes a lot.”

 

Louis chuckles, presses his face into Harry’s neck. “You think that’s the end of the world? We literally have holes that we shouldn’t have on our body right now. Plus, you wouldn’t want to miss out on seeing me in a dress.”

 

It goes quiet between them until Harry speaks up again, “Louis? Can… can you take off my mask?”

 

He freezes, “Are you sure?... Do you want me to close my eyes?” Louis makes out a meager shake of his head. “It’s okay if you want me to close my eyes. Bros don’t out bros, you know?”

 

“We are more than bros,” Harry replies. “We’re bro-mates. So please, take off my mask.”

 

Louis uses gentle fingers to peel back the falling-apart mask and sees Harry in his broken perfection. His vivid green eyes are surrounded by purple and yellow that fade as he continues to slowly heal. His bottom lip is bleeding in the middle and there’s hair matting to his skin in red. He’s everything Louis wants. “Hope you’re not disappointed,” Harry says. “But if it’s any consolation, I was just beaten up very badly.”

 

Louis leans in and slips his mask up above his mouth before kissing Harry. He can taste his metallic blood sneaking passed his lips, and it’s strange but Louis doesn’t pull away. “I’m not disappointed,” Louis breathes after pulling down his mask to conceal any scarred skin again. “God, you’re such an asshole. I don’t think I’m ever going to be disappointed with you, which is infuriating because it’s going to be the complete opposite with me.”

 

Harry doesn’t think so.

 

With his slower healing factor, it takes Harry much longer to get into his car seat than Louis because his abdomen still hurts a great deal. But Louis is patient.

 

He forgoes the seat belt and tells Louis to turn on the car. “Do you… Do you really want to head back now?” Louis asks as he puts the car in drive. “Or do you want to do something?”

 

“Like what?” Harry croaks from the passenger side.

 

Louis looks at the setting sun and sinks into his seat a little as he says, “Don’t think that I was trying anything but… I may have booked a cabin for us just in case this hunt would take longer. And like, I paid for it on Niall’s credit card so… if he’s going to be mad, I’d rather actually make it worth it.”

 

Harry wants to cackle but cuts himself short when it sends pain to his stomach. He whines before saying, “Let’s do it then.” 

 

Checking in is awkward because going around in a red mask and spandex still isn’t popular. The receptionist's eyes shift awkwardly between Louis and his computer screen before he finally gives him the key. “Thank you,” Louis says before stepping out. He finds Harry exiting the men’s bathroom, dressed in gray sweatpants, a poorly-chosen white t-shirt that’s already beginning to be stained in red, and a navy blue beanie. “Got the keys, darling,” Louis announces, kissing his cheek, which is more him pressing his masked face against his. 

 

They get their bags and go find their rental cabin. 

 

Harry lies in bed while Louis stands in the bathroom mirror, mask off. He ponders if Harry wants to see his face now that he’s revealed his own, like maybe he owes him now. He doesn’t know if he can do it. 

 

“What did Francis mean when he told Thanos you wouldn’t be a problem anymore?” Harry speaks up, voice being carried into the restroom. Harry doesn’t have any clue who Thanos even is.

 

Louis walks over to the threshold and leans against the frame, making sure Harry still can’t see him. “Uh. I used to have a thing with Death,” Louis says, which doesn’t clarify anything for Harry. “Like… Mistress Death. I… Used to die a lot and we kind of had a thing going on because I saw her so much. But then that jealous purple bitch, Thanos, threw a fit and cursed me with immortality so I couldn’t see her anymore.”

 

Harry nods to himself. He gets to his feet and Louis startles. He rushes to the sink and whips his mask back on just as Harry comes in the doorway. He frowns and Louis looks away. “Louis, I’m not asking you to, I’m just wondering why you won’t show me your face,” He says softly. Louis grabs the edges of the sink. 

 

“Well, when you’re ugly and your boyfriend looks like he belongs in a fucking boyband, you kind of want him to continue being your boyfriend,” Louis replies in a cheery voice, trying to pass it off as a joke. He is a joke. He takes a deep breath. “I don’t want you to leave,” He admits, feeling stupid the second it leaves his lips. A voice in his head tells him that he is, he sounds like an idiot, and the other voice says that opening up to Harry will only make them stronger. But the former voice is louder.

 

“I’m not going to leave,” Harry replies. “I-I already saw what your face looks like. I saw that picture of y--”

 

“I don’t look like that anymore!” Louis shouts in frustration. “I’m... disgusting. Literally the ugliest thing you’ll ever see in your life.”

 

Harry feels his heart break because even though Louis talks a lot of self deprecating shit, this is real and this is how he actually feels about himself. “Louis, I know that… That finding Francis was something I wanted too but know that I would put my life away from this on hold whenever you needed. I would give up everything if you asked me to. I-I took a bullet for you, which hurt like hell by the way, and I shot someone for you. I would do so many things for you,” Harry says, “but I will never agree with you when you think you’re disgusting and that I’m going to leave you. I’m not.”

 

Louis stares at the sink drain for what feels like minutes. Harry doesn’t break. He sighs as he brings his trembling fingers under the end of his mask. Somehow he’s more afraid of this moment than he was when he faced Francis after years. Clearly his priorities are straight. 

 

He grazes his scarred skin with his fingers as he finally removes his mask. Harry sees the traces of the man he saw in that picture a few days ago but he sees all of the man he’s fought beside for months, the man who has a kinder heart than he gives himself credit for, the man he’s driven crazy by, the man he loves. “Welcome to the freakshow, beautiful,” Louis huffs, not meeting his gaze. 

 

Louis takes the silence as a negative reaction and starts thinking of what flavor of ice cream he’ll want to eat when Harry leaves. He considers mint and chocolate chip until he feels someone, Harry, grab him by the shoulder. Harry turns him around and cups his face before kissing his lips. Louis thinks he hears Etta James’s voice in his head again but this time, there is no bullet hole in it.

 

“I love you,” Harry says the second the kiss ends. “And this different but it doesn’t change that I’m still crazy about you.”

 

Louis pauses and squints his eyes. “How crazy?” He asks.

 

Harry looks in thought for a moment before he opens a bathroom drawer, delight spreading across his features as he reaches into it. He displays and waves a roll of condoms in front of Louis’s face. “This crazy,” Harry responds, raising both of his eyebrows suggestively. God, this took a turn and Louis really, really likes it. “Kind of want to figure out if there’s another reason they call you ‘the merc with a mouth.’”

 

They take it slow. Not because it’s like special or anything, because Harry would be fucking the daylights out of him right now, but more because they were both shot or impaled just a few hours ago. They’ll have other times to do it wild but this is more than enough for now. 

 

Harry drags his hands across Louis’s scarred chest as he comes apart underneath him. In bed, he’s much different from the merc with a mouth. He seems even smaller than he already is, submissive, and Harry feels an even stronger urge to take care of him in every way. “You’re one of the best things in my life,” Harry pants. “And you’re going to have a real tough time getting rid of me.”

 

“I’m n-not going to try. But christ, I’m fucking annoying and I do stupid shit all the time. You’re going to get so fucking sick of it eventually.”

 

“I love everything about you.” Louis whines at that.

 

“For now. God, you’re going to be in for a fucking ride, Spidey.”

 

“I think that’s you actually,” Harry replies with a smirk before carefully flipping them over.

 

\--

 

This year, Louis doesn’t celebrate his birthday at home with Zayn and Niall like he usually does. Instead he spends it with Harry, and together they break into a house, dressed in their suits and matching Christmas sweaters that Harry bought for the both of them. “Are you ready?” Louis asks, grabbing Harry by his shoulders.

 

“Yes. Um, know that I love you and all, but if we wake anyone up, I’m running with or without you,” Harry confesses. 

 

“That’s understandable,” Louis says. “And I’ll still love you as long as you bail me out of prison later.”

 

They both go to lean in for a little tap of masked lips on lips until both pairs of their night vision goggles thunk together loudly. “Right, those are on,” Harry grumbles to himself. “Okay, well, let’s go break into a family home, darling.” 

 

They pick the lock on the back door because it’s the best option, no matter how much Louis insists the chimney is better and more appropriate for this time of year. The door creaks quietly as Harry slowly pushes it open. “That’s pretty spooky,” Louis whispers, more to himself than Harry, as they tiptoe inside. 

 

Even through his night vision goggles, Louis can tell this family is a happy one just from the way the house looks. It’s quaint, bright wood table tops, messy crayon drawings on the fridge. Louis maybe, just maybe, steals one of the drawings, one they might not miss that much if it goes missing. He puts it away in his utility belt and follows Harry deeper into the house.

 

The living room is lit up by the christmas tree in the corner. They both put their night vision goggles on their heads. 

 

Louis is relieved to see that there are a few presents under the tree, stickers with names that are followed by little hearts on them. Harry nudges Louis’s bicep with the corner of the wrapped box in his hand. Louis takes it, rereads the  _ From Santa, To Addie _ that he wrote on it, and squats to gently place it among the other presents under the tree. Besides its bad wrapping job, it blends in with the other ones. 

 

They’ve accomplished what they came to do but Harry waits patiently for Louis to do whatever he has to now because they won’t be back for a few more months. He watches quietly as Louis straightens himself out and quietly walks over to the fireplace. 

 

Above the stockings that line the fireplace are pictures of the family with frames that are decorated with words like  _ love _ and  _ happiness _ . And Louis is so fucking glad to see Addie smiling in the photos. He drags his gloved finger over her, the glass barrier separating him from the image. She’s so beautiful, Louis wonders how she’s his. 

 

Christ, he wants to steal her away and be a dad to her. He wants to wake up in an empty bed and go into the kitchen to find Addie and Harry eating breakfast at the table, waiting for him. He wants to watch Harry tuck her into bed and he wants to read her a bedtime story right after. He wants to go to PTA meetings and fight the parents of the stupid little boys that decide to give her a hard time while Harry tries to hold him back. He wants her but he knows that she deserves so much more.

 

He doesn’t realize how much he needs to be held until Harry wraps his arms around him from behind and he feels more at ease, hears the voices in his head quiet down. “Saw you shaking,” Harry mumbles softly. Louis focuses on the strong arms around him and feels anchored, feels like he won’t float away.

 

“I think I’m ready to go now,” Louis replies. 

 

“Alright, my love,” Harry says airily. “Let’s go watch X-Files.”

 

Louis sits at the edge of Harry’s bed in just his boxer briefs and mask. The door is locked and the lights are off, the room only illuminated by the screen of Harry’s small TV. The window open, having been used as their entrance only moments before.

 

Louis feels the bed sink behind him as Harry comes near, situating himself there and wrapping his legs around Louis’s middle. He kisses Louis’s bare, marred skin and rests his head there. “Our 6 month anniversary is in 2 days,” Harry mumbles. “Believe me yet?”

 

Louis robotically replies, “I Want To Believe.”

 

Harry snorts, reaches behind him with his web-shooter to grab a pillow and whack Louis with it. “I love you, you asshole,” He says. “Always will, til Death do us part... but I’ll put up a fight.”

 

“I love you too,” Louis replies, smiling as he looks down at his lap. 

 

They get into the sheets of Harry’s bed when their eyelids begin to feel heavy. Louis takes off his mask, takes his position as the small spoon, and patiently waits for the warmth of Harry’s broad body behind him. He eyes the murder board he and Harry put together on the wall, red strings everywhere, pictures of Harry’s parents in the middle. 

 

He doesn’t think he’d put in this much effort to figuring out what happened to people that don’t directly matter to him for just anyone, but they matter to Harry and Harry matters to him. Plus, his boyfriend, with the heart of a fucking angel, would do it for him and probably strangers on the street. He’d probably help an alien race. Christ, Louis loves him.

 

He feels Harry loop his arms around him and pull him close. He’ll have to let go in a few hours and Louis will have to leave before his stepfamily finds him. But Louis will always find his way back into his arms later in the day. 

 

He does believe him. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaaa hi. So this chapter didn't take me two weeks like the other one did. It took me way longer and I can't pinpoint why. But after writing the first part, I wasn't able to write anything else and really enjoy it for a while. So I gave this another go. This chapter follows Harry's life more than the first one. As always, thank you so much for reading. I hope you'll enjoy this one. 
> 
> Same warnings apply for this part as the first part. Be safe, enjoy, I love you. 
> 
> [chat with me on tumblr !](http://louchanan.tumblr.com) :)
> 
> I would like to dedicate this to my friend, Janyha, just for being an incredible person !

Harry opens his eyes to his blinking alarm clock and soon realizes that it’s also ringing, has probably been ringing longer than it should’ve. He inhales sharply because he can’t be late to school any days this week. With the superhero thing, he’s having a harder time getting home and getting much needed sleep. It doesn’t help that sleep is also that much better with small but strong, scarred arms around his middle. Louis, always his weakness.

 

“Fuck,” he huffs before he practically flies out of bed, barely disturbing Louis’s sleep. He simply grumbles sleepily and rolls over, turning his back to Harry. “Louis,” he hisses quietly. “Louis!” 

 

He grabs a pillow by its gray case and throws it at him. Louis then grabs it and snuggles it. Harry can’t let that cute act stop him right now though. He grabs another pillow and begins to hit him just as knocks come against his locked door. The knocks are followed by a, “Harry! Are you up?”

 

“Oh my fuck,” Harry whispers. His vocabulary has gotten more vulgar in the past year, and it’s not surprising considering who his boyfriend is. “Yeah! I’m up!” He calls back just as he hits Louis harder. Louis lets out a loud groan and Harry jumps onto his bed, putting his hands against his mouth to quiet him. Louis really wakes up now, eyes wide as he looks at Harry and then the place where his hands are. Louis comments on it but his words are muffled by Harry’s hands. Something about a blindfold.

 

“Okay! Dad made breakfast by the way,” Liam replies. Harry listens closely for the sound of his footsteps going away. 

 

“You need to go,” Harry says calmly as he removes his hands from his mouth. “You were supposed to leave two hours ago.”

 

“Okay… Well, I had that really good dream, you know?” Louis begins to explain as he sits up, propping himself up with his arms. “The one with the football team of nothing but David Beckhams, and they all take turns holding me down a-”

 

“Yes, yes, I know the one,” Harry cuts him off. It’s early in the morning, he’s going to be late, and he really can’t have any of this right now. “Lou, I need to go to school.”

 

“Kicking me out to do the Walk of Shame? I have never felt so loved,” Louis says as he jumps out of Harry’s bed. He’s slowly learning when enough is enough. He turns around and leans over to press a kiss to Harry’s lips, grabbing his suit pieces that lay at the foot of the bed. “It’s alright, my sweet dollop of buttercream. You go get that diploma so you don’t end up having to kill people for money like some of us.”

 

Harry hurries to dress as Louis does too. Louis beats him to it, and as he’s pulling his shirt up his arms, Louis waltzes over and pushes him up against the wall, his limbs still trapped in his shirt. Though Louis’s slowly learning when enough is enough, he’s still not learning fast enough and he doesn’t plan to. Harry shudders at the feeling of his leg in between both of his. His dick immediately perks up, it’s embarrassing.

 

“You know one day I won’t have to leave your bed in the morning. I won’t have to leave it at all and it’ll be  _ our _ bed actually,” Louis replies, gently grinding his thigh against Harry’s crotch. Harry bites his lip at the thought of he and Louis having a bed together, a house.  _ Domesticity _ . His cock goes hard almost too quickly. Louis smiles and looks down at his bulge, “Hello! Sorry to leave you hanging. Or would the correct choice of words be ‘standing up’? I don’t know but I’ll see you later.” He brings his eyes back to Harry’s, “And you too,” and presses another kiss to his lips before slipping his mask over his face and leaving by means of the firescape. 

 

He can tell Louis is just too pleased with himself for leaving him high and dry. But Harry should’ve seen something like this coming the moment he kicked Louis out of bed. Or the moment they got together, honestly. 

 

He stares at the murder board on his wall as he does his belt, eyeing the old picture of his parents in the center the most. He and Louis are still trying to piece it all together the best they can, try to tie loose ends, fill in the holes (but that’s becoming harder with all the other holes they’ve been filling, mostly Louis’s), before they go out to seek other information. He wants to know if that tiny spark of hope he has that his parents are alive will be worth all the years of it burning into his heart or if it’ll finally be watered out. Harry just wants answers. 

 

He opens up his closet and pulls out the Star Wars poster Louis got him a few days after they created the murder board. Not so coincidentally, also a few days after Harry told him that he didn’t like Star Wars. He pins the poster over the murder board like he has for the last few months and then goes to grab his book bag. 

 

Louis blames it on love that he stops the taxi he’s in to deal with a boring crime like bank robbery. Because his boy is out getting his diploma and bettering himself, he can’t come deal with this and when he sees it on the news later, he’s going to feel like shit that he didn’t. It leads to a lot of good cuddling but Louis finds the cuddling even better when Harry is happy. It’s his strong belief that his entire life is better when Harry is happy. “God, I fucking love that kid,” Louis grumbles to himself as he fills his pistol’s magazine with bullets before kicking open the back entrance of the bank. 

 

He makes it out of the back rooms without running into anyone, which kind of erased some of his hype of killing bad guys. But he stays hopeful. 

 

A certain door piques his interest when he hears voices and footsteps behind it. “Lucky door number three!” Louis announces as he bursts through it, startling all the people in the building, hostages, gunmen, and all. He’s greeted by a wash of bullets and sprints to get behind the bank teller counter. “Clearly, you all have heard of me. Or maybe my boyfriend. We get confused together a lot,” Louis huffs from where he sits with his back against the dark wood desk, “which I don’t really understand. Like he slings web, I don’t. His suit is red and blue, mine’s red and black. He likes penetrating, I enjoy being penetrated. He has a pretty face, mine looks like salami. We’re completely different.” It goes a little too still so Louis has to ask, “Was the salami part too much?” 

 

He pops up from behind the counter, holding both of his pistols. “Listen, we don’t have to fight,” he says. “I just really, really need to take out a loan.”

 

They all look at each other with incredulous expressions before lifting their guns into the proper position again. “Fuck, so you have seen my credit score,” Louis hisses to himself.

 

As Louis’s dealing with eradicating (since it sounds nicer than ‘killing’) the bank robbers, his phone starts to inconveniently ring, playing Pony by Ginuwine. That ringtone only means one thing, and he answers immediately. “Hey, Wolvie!” He greets as he dodges a bullet and then shoots his own. “As much as I love you getting on your knees and begging me to join the X-Men, I’m kind of busy right now. And unless you’re calling for other matters that still include getting on your knees, I have to hang up.”

 

Louis hums as Wolverine talks. “I can tell you some things about Des Styles and Anne Cox. I know you and your boy, Spider Man, are trying to look for them.,” He says.

 

“Really?” Louis asks.

 

“It’s not a good thing, Pool. You’re going to get your ass in trouble if you don’t keep it on the low.”

 

“Ooh. In how much trouble is my ass going to be, Wolvie?” Louis purrs ridiculously like a porn star as he hits a man’s forehead with the butt of his gun. 

 

Wolverine groans, “Come to the X-Mansion,” and then hangs up before Louis can give him more shit about it being called the ‘X-Mansion’. Louis puffs and then goes to text Harry. Or at least, attempt to. 

 

Harry reaches under his gown for his phone as it vibrates. His eyebrows rise as he tries to decipher what the hell Louis’s sent him. He’s graduating from ESU at the top of his class yet he can’t figure out Louis’s extreme typos. It isn’t rocket science, and maybe that’s the problem. 

 

He’ll just have to ask him later. He pockets his phone.

 

He figures out which gown size fits him best and then goes to fill out his form.

 

Harry shuts the door to Liam’s car and waits for him on the sidewalk, checking his phone for any more texts from a specific mouthy devil that he loves. But there is none. He looks up when he hears the jingle of Liam’s house keys and goes to follow him when he hears the sound of a bird. The imitation of it, at least. He stops in his tracks and says, “I’ll be right in. I have to… Go check the garbage.” 

 

Liam raises an eyebrow but nods and continues the path inside. Harry waits until he hears the door to the building shut before he rounds the corner and steps into the alley. 

 

Harry’s back is against the grimy brick wall, held against it by small gloved hands. Though it gave him a fright and the wind has been knocked out of him, he still smiles at Louis. “Hi,” he breathes. 

 

“We have to go.”

 

Before Harry even asks, “Where?” Louis has already taken his hand and has them running. 

 

As they walk up to the front door of the X-Mansion, Harry is huffing about Louis not giving him time to properly get into his suit. “Stop complaining because you wear spandex and your dick is huge,” Louis says as he rings the doorbell.

 

“That’s not… That’s not what I was saying.”

 

“I read in between the lines,” Louis explains before ringing the doorbell again. And again. And again. He continues to do it until the door is wide open and Logan gives him a glare that says all the ways he’d kill him. “Hi, sir. Would you like to join the Mormon church?”

 

The door is slammed in his face and locked. 

 

But Louis isn’t deterred. He simply twists his body to look behind himself at Harry before turning back to the door and waits patiently before it’s unlocked. Louis claps his hands before opening the door and stepping inside, Harry follows. 

 

They find Logan in the kitchen, pouring himself some dark scotch in a short glass. “Starting the fun without us?” Louis announces as they walk in.

 

“No. I just know that if I’m going to have to be around you, I’m going to have to keep throwing these back,” Logan growls. Harry doesn’t know how Louis does it, how he can have people who openly say that they hate him and yet, would die for him right after. He’s so paradoxical. “It’s nice to meet you,” Logan adds as he puts his glass down and extends his hand for Harry to shake.

 

“Hi,” Harry says.

 

“You’re Des and Anne’s son?” Logan asks as he fills himself another glass. Harry nods. “They were smart people. So I don’t really understand how you got with this jackass.” Louis huffs under his mask and bites his tongue, something he rarely does and won’t be able to do much longer. He kind of enjoys the thrill of pushing Logan’s buttons until he decides to whip out his claws. It’s like edging. But with more danger and less semen.

 

He begins to walk and Louis and Harry hurry to catch up with him. They go through many halls until they reach the stairs to the basement. “This house is really big,” Harry comments.

 

“Don’t jinx it. It might blow up. Again,” Louis says.

 

“Does your boyfriend know you were the reason it blew up the second time?” Logan asks, slightly smug as he says it. Harry turns around to see Louis silent, arms crossed over his chest. 

 

“You know! No one told me there was a gas leak! And our stove wasn’t working at home, okay?” Louis whines. “Still never got my quesadilla that day.”

 

Logan opens the door to the library, the room colored in mostly royal reds and greens. The furniture is all mahogany and makes Harry think Baroque. It’s elegant and dark. Louis and Harry take a seat on the Chesterfield sofa, the color of the couch matching the color of Logan’s scotch. 

 

“How old are you, Harry?” Logan asks, taking the boy by surprise for knowing his name. 

 

“21,” Harry answers. A wistful smile comes onto Logan’s lips before he takes another sip of his scotch. 

 

“Hard to believe it’s been that long,” Logan starts as he places his glass on the table between them, politely using a wooden coaster. 

 

Harry feels Louis’s arm snake around him, his hand gently holding onto his hip. “What… What do you know about my parents?” He asks, trying not to come off as too eager to know but only half successful. 

 

“Well, what do you know about them?”

 

Harry raises an eyebrow and adjusts the way he’s sat on the couch. He doesn’t know the purpose of this question. “They… They were scientists,” Harry answers. “They were named Des and Anne. I heard some people call them traitors but I don’t know who they betrayed. That’s… that’s it.” 

 

Logan shakes his head, eyes shut. “No… No. Des and Anne were good people. They’re not traitors, I know that much,” Logan replies. “They weren’t just… scientists though. They were a part of the CIA.” He stops and stares at the both of them, an expression akin to disgust on his face. “Can… Can the both of you take off your masks? It’s just weird I’m the only one here without one.”

 

Harry hesitates but takes it off. “Actually, Pool, leave yours on,” Logan is quick to add. Louis sighs in relief, and Harry smiles to himself as he shakes out his hair.

 

“How did you meet my parents?” Harry asks to bring them back on the topic.

 

Logan recalls the days before he met Harry’s parents. He was trapped in Bombay, shackled to an experiment table, and tortured, mostly by the sight of of Baron Von Strucker dressed as a gimp.

 

He says that Harry’s parents were the nicest agents he’d ever met. Continuous physical and mental torture didn’t really allow him to be friendly and sociable right after but they were okay about it. “Because you’re always a ray of sunshine otherwise,” Louis mutters to himself. 

 

Logan also adds that he was there when Harry’s mother announced she was pregnant. They were ecstatic and were hoping for a boy. He slightly shudders as he thinks about how happy they were, they kissed and wouldn’t stop smiling. “Those two were… the most in love people I’ve ever seen,” he says. Harry’s eyes stupidly start to sting, causing them to glaze over. Louis notices but doesn’t draw any attention to it.

 

Harry can’t count the number of times throughout his life that sleep was stolen from him by the thought of his orphancy being his fault. It was a constant repeat of his biological parents not wanting him, that they never saw anything special in him, he was worthless. Hearing that his mother and father were ecstatic to be parents makes him wish he could go back, tell his younger self that he was wanted. 

 

He asks the other question that’s also been burning a hole in his brain, “Do you know if they’re still alive?”

 

Logan shifts and stares at the two centimeters of scotch still in his glass. “I don’t know, kid,” he answers. “I really don’t.”

 

Louis drives them home because Harry’s still lost in his thoughts. It doesn’t stop Louis from talking to him, though he’s not entirely there. “... I don’t know, I just think it’s time for them to drop her. Go by Fourth Harmony instead,” Louis says. 

 

Harry reaches over and turns down the music. Louis turns and looks at him. Harry glances over and says, “I think… I think I want you to meet my parents.”

 

“But we haven’t even found them yet, Long Legs,” Louis replies gently.

 

Harry snorts. “No, not them. Um, my adoptive parents and my brother,” Harry says. “Because after graduation, I…,” he blushes, “kind of want to be with you. And I also don’t want to scare them and sneak away like last time if we’re going to find out what happened.”

 

He says the last part faster to cover up the beginning. But he can’t take Louis’s mind off of it. Louis doesn’t think the rhythm of his heart will ever stop picking up when Harry says sappy, gay stuff like that. “Are you sure you want me to meet them?” Louis asks. “You know what I look like under this mask, like a raw meatball that your mom is going to cook for dinner that night. You sure you want them to know you’re dating me?”

 

Harry giggles and leans over, pulling Louis’s mask off and peppering kisses up and down the side of his face. “I love you and I want you to meet them,” Harry says. “Before graduation too, so you can all sit together. I’ll set it up and tell you when. Just don’t arrive in this suit.”

 

“Well, it’s all I got, Harry,” Louis huffs. “Besides my come-stained joggers. You still owe me new joggers, by the way.”

 

Harry stuffs the red and blue spandex into his bag as he walks down the sidewalk. When he steps into the house, he sees everyone turn to face him while they’re sat at the dinner table. “Hi,” he greets awkwardly.

 

He throws his bag onto the nearest couch and hurries over to the table, taking his seat. “Did checking the garbage really take 2 hours?” Liam asks with a snort. Harry turns a bit red.

 

“What were you doing, Harry?” His mother, Karen, asks.

 

“Um, I went somewhere,” Harry answers as he lifts his fork, playing with his warm food. “With my boyfriend.”

 

Liam chokes, immediately grabbing his napkin and coughing into it. Besides Liam practically dying beside them, Geoff and Karen are both surprised but delighted. Karen smiles to herself as she chews, swallowing before she asks, “How long have you been with the boy?” 

 

Harry’s eyes widen and he puffs out air, “I don’t know… A year?”

 

This doesn’t assuage Liam’s choking fit. So Harry reaches over and firmly hits his back to dislodge whatever is caught in his throat. “A year?” Liam croaks out. “Why… Who is it? Does he go to our school?” Harry shakes his head. 

 

“Where’d you meet him then?” Geoff asks. 

 

“...On the web,” Harry answers. He thinks it clever. Unfortunately, his family will never know. 

 

Karen squints with a smile, “He’s not a creep, is he, Harry?”

 

“Define ‘creep,’” Harry responds with a chuckle. He shakes his head as he adds, “Well, it’s been a year and I think… he’s pretty nice.”

 

Liam’s eyes widen, “You love him.” Now Harry’s the one to nearly start choking. He does love Louis, he really does. But he’s not ready to talk about his love with his family just yet. “Ah! That’s so awesome. What’s his name? When are we meeting him?” 

 

“Chill out,” Harry replies, throwing his napkin at Liam. “His name is Louis. And we were thinking we could have a dinner before graduation.” 

 

“That would be lovely,” Karen says. 

 

\--

 

Zayn wakes up, his arm reaching the other side of the bed. He feels around until he feels a familiar head of hair and smiles to himself. “Morning, Zayn,” Niall breathes sleepily. 

 

“Morning,” Zayn replies as he continues to play with his hair. 

 

“Morning, guys,” Louis says in the middle of them. Zayn’s smile immediately falls. 

 

“Niall, please tell me that was you,” Zayn says. “Have you been practicing your accents? Because that was a spot on one of a dickhead.”

 

“Ouch, my feelings, Zayn,” Louis replies as he whips the duvet off of the three of them. He stands up on the mattress and begins to walk to the edge, purposely stepping on Zayn’s legs. 

 

“Louis!” He hisses.

 

“You don’t know it’s me,” Louis says. He still hasn’t learned that making jokes about Zayn not being able to see ends up with him on his face. Like now. He’s met with resistance on one of his ankles and he falls over the edge of the bed, right on his fucking face. 

 

Zayn lets go of his ankle and Niall cackles loudly beside him. 

 

Louis steps into his room and grabs his phone off the nightstand, checking for text messages and finding two from Harry. It’s the normal good morning text, occasionally it’s sent with an image attached of Harry’s morning wood. Unfortunately, not today. But the next text is about the dinner date. Now that it’s come to fruition, Louis is nervous and he only has two days to prepare. 

 

He never thought he’d date anyone after what happened to his skin, much less meet their family. He takes a deep breath to calm his mind that’s going into overdrive and sends back a text, telling Harry he’s excited. His phone starts to immediately ring right after, a picture of him and Harry on the screen, and he answers. “You’re scared,” Harry says without preamble. 

 

“I’m not,” Louis gasps. It’s a lie. He hears Harry giggle. “I just… don’t know what the fuck I’m going to say… to excuse my personality. And my fucking face.” 

 

Harry hums into the phone and he softly says, “You don’t have to.” Louis lies down on his bed and groans because Harry is too good to him. He can tell Harry’s doing that one fucking smile as he continues to console Louis, telling him not to worry because he loves him and always will regardless of what his family thinks. Louis still doesn’t understand how a guy who looks like himself gets a guy like Harry. It’s usually not how the world works but God, Louis is so grateful that the stars aligned for this one. “Feeling better?” Harry asks when he finishes his spiel. 

 

“Hm, no. Now tell me why you love me,” Louis punctuates it with a yawn. “In detail.” Harry does so, graciously. 

 

\--

 

Louis sits atop his favorite building, dressed in jeans, a sweater, and a beanie with a bouquet of red roses held in his lap. His feet dangle over the edge, over the lights of the cars in the streets. “I’m not sad,” Louis says. “I don’t know what the fuck this is.”

 

“I didn’t say anything,” Harry responds, surprising Louis because he didn’t expect an actual voice to respond. He takes a seat beside him and nudges Louis’s shoulder with his head. 

 

“I will throw you off this building,” Louis deadpans, making Harry smile.

 

“I’ll just use my web-shooters,” Harry says as he scoots even closer to Louis and wraps an arm around his shoulders. “What’s up?” 

 

“The sky,” Louis answers. 

 

“Okay, your jokes are kind of shitty. So what’s really happening in there?” Harry persists as he presses a finger to Louis’s temple and Louis swats at his hand.

 

“My jokes are fucking amazing. All the ti- everyday,” Louis huffs. The voices in his head won’t quiet down and every second that passes, making the dinner closer, makes them louder. “You know when you want to die to avoid something? Like your plan B is always death? Okay, well, that’s me. Except dying permanently is really fucking hard.”

 

Harry pulls Louis closer, resting his head against Louis’s. Moments like these never strain or damage their relationship. In fact, Harry only finds himself loving Louis even more. 

 

Louis is a man in red who oozes confidence when he has to fight the bad guys, shooting guns and swinging his katanas like he breathes. (Of course, there are hiccups and he gets dismembered at times.) But outside of the red suit, he’s vulnerable and almost lost. He’s able to just be Louis William Tomlinson but he doesn’t know what that actually means. 

 

He’s been Deadpool almost exclusively for years because there was no purpose for Louis, no life for Louis because it was all taken from him. 

 

So it’s a little daunting to be building a life with someone else again. A life he can go to after he takes the mask off. He just wants to do it right this time.

 

Harry takes Louis’s hand and runs it over the carving on the concrete ledge they’re sitting on. He looks down as he feels it under his fingertips. The same thing Louis spray painted on Niall’s old car months ago, carved into this stone. 

 

“ _ You're the meaning in my life _ ,” Harry coos, a goofy smile coming onto his face. Louis hates that he can’t help his own smile from growing. “ _ You're the inspiration. Wanna have you near me, I wanna have you hear me sayin ‘No one needs you more than I need you.’” _

 

Louis stares at the setting sun and simply says, “You missed a lyric.”

 

Harry steps into the kitchen where Liam is at the stove, checking for burning food while their parents get dressed. “He’s still coming, yeah?” Liam asks as he stirs the food in one of the pans. 

 

“Yeah,” Harry answers. “I… He’s nervous though. So can you be a pal and like save him if he does anything… Stupid?”

 

Liam smiles and raises his eyebrows, “Sure.”

 

Louis listens to the cellophane flower wrap crinkle under his hand as he reaches his hand forward to ring the bell. But the door opens before he can reach it and he finds Harry facing him with a smile. Spider senses, fucking cheater. 

 

“Hey,” Harry says, voice borderline giddy. He’s pretending like he wasn’t just with Louis less than an hour ago. “Are those for me?”

 

“You get off on things like this, don’t you?” Louis replies smugly before stepping passed him. “And no, these are for your mother.”

 

Harry smiles even wider before leaning in and kisses just above Louis’s brow. Louis tries his best not to think about his skin. His skin. His skin. 

 

Harry shuts the door behind him and they just stand in front of it, smiling at each other, until they hear another voice, “Harry! Is that him?”

 

“Yeah!” Harry calls back. “That’s my brother, Liam. Feeling good, Lou?”

 

“Uh, yeah,” Louis responds, ignoring the nervous waver in this voice. “I’ve got this in the fucking bag.” 

 

He hears the fast pace of footsteps coming down the stairs. And the louder landing of Harry’s brother jumping off the last step. He’s dressed in a clean black button down with epaulettes that square off his shoulders. His hair is in a quiff, similar to Zayn’s. But unlike Zayn’s, if you knocked your knuckles against Liam’s quiff, it wouldn’t make a sound. So, much, much less product.

 

“I guess I know who the hotter brother is,” Louis mumbles. Harry hits his arm with a small chuckle. 

 

Liam’s walking over and Louis wonders at what distance he’ll finally see the uneven texture of his face. But Louis doesn’t see his smiley expression falter, doesn’t see the moment of recognition as he extends his hand and says, “Hi, I’m Liam.”

 

“Louis,” He responds. 

 

“Can’t believe Harry’s been hiding you away from us for a year. But I always knew something like this was happening,” Liam adds as he retracts his hand. “It’s good to have you here, mate. Parents should be down soon.”

 

He retreats to the kitchen to shut off the burners. “H-he didn’t even flinch,” Louis stammers. “Is it… Is it dark in here? He didn’t even flinch.”

 

Harry smiles and pulls him into a side hug, kissing the corner of his lips. “He just doesn’t care about it, Louis,” he says softly as he kisses him again. “I told you it’d be alright.”

 

“Did you tell them beforehand?”

 

“No.”

 

“Harry.”

 

“I didn’t,” Harry insists. “I wouldn’t lie to you. They don’t just see your skin, you know? They see someone I care about and love.” 

 

Louis sighs, “That’s so gay.”

 

“I love you,” Harry adds but Louis doesn’t return it because he hears more people coming down. And they aren’t both Liam. He takes a deep breath, cutting off the voices in his head before they continue. He feels Harry’s hand press into the small of his back and it secures him here to this moment. “Mom, Dad, this is Louis.”

 

“Hello, darling,” his mother starts as she and Geoff close the distance between them. “It’s so nice to finally meet you.”

 

Louis is surprised that she pulls him in for a hug and kisses his cheek, her short blonde hair tickling his face. The general public doesn’t even like looking at Louis, he’d never expect someone he’s just met to be hugging and kissing him. “You too,” he squeaks out. “These are for you. Red roses, not very original. But...”

 

He holds out the flowers and she takes them graciously, cooing over how sweet he is. Harry’s heart is going to burst.

 

Geoff introduces himself next, also hugging Louis but no cheek kisses are exchanged. “Liam should be setting the table,” Karen says as she begins to lead the way to the dining area. Harry takes his hand and walks beside him. 

 

There are no questions regarding his face, which is almost disappointing because Louis had prepared several elaborate explanations for it. He was going to choose whichever one felt right in the moment. There were some other questions he didn’t have truthful answers to, like what he did as a job and where he went to school, but he coolly lies and gets through it. 

 

Miraculously, he manages to tone down his crudeness, which he hopes Harry appreciates enough to reward him later when he returns to his house in secret. With extra sweet cuddles and kisses, that is. The way that Harry squeezes his knee under the table every now and then suggests that he’ll be getting what he wants.

 

Louis gets a hug from all of Harry’s family, making an obnoxious face when he hugs Liam that makes Harry chuckle. And also makes him a little bit jealous, but he wouldn’t admit that. 

 

Harry shuts the front door after a last kiss and steps into the kitchen where Liam and Karen are doing the minor pile of dishes. “He’s a lovely boy, that one,” his mom says. Liam smiles at him. 

 

He slowly goes up the steps, smile on his face. When he reaches his door, he stands in front of it and listens for the little telltale sounds of Louis being behind it. The quiet creaks of his bed springs, the sound of the breeze coming through the window he had to open to get in, the small breaths. 

 

Harry opens the door to find him lying in his bed with his ankles hooked together and a pillow to his chest. Harry shuts the door and dives onto the bed, landing right on top of him. Louis shoves him off and Harry latches onto him so they both tumble to the floor with a loud thud. They both laugh, Harry’s laugh louder than Louis’s. 

 

His large hands settle on Louis’s lower back, just before the swell of his bum, and he kisses his button nose. He could stay here forever. “How’d you like dinner? Not too bad, right?” Harry asks softly. 

 

Louis tilts his head to one sized while also squinting one of his eyes in thought. “No…,” He answers. “But I really just… want to punch someone.”

 

“... Do you have your suit?”

 

“This is the kind of support I need in a relationship.”

 

\--

 

“I have 10! Fucking! Minutes!” Louis shouts. “So don’t you fucking think about lighting that.”

 

He watches the man lift his hand that holds his lighter, bring it closer to the crude device.

 

Louis shoots him and wishes that he had been given some superhuman speed. But alas, he wasn’t and he doesn’t make it in time. Maybe if he was from Transia, he might’ve. 

 

The man falls and the molotov cocktail still shatters to the floor, managing to catch flame over an area of space Louis can’t put out with just a few stomps of his foot. Especially not with more burglars trying to shoot at him. 

 

The heat builds and he knows he has to work quicker because he’s down to 6 minutes to get to Harry’s graduation. And this building has the potential of collapsing if enough flames decide to swallow it.

 

He grabs the last guy by the back of his neck and bashes his face into the glass display boxes. “You -- wasted -- 2 -- minutes!” Louis screams with every swing, the glass coming back redder and redder with each one. Louis drops him once he’s sure he’s taken care of and starts for the exit. “The coast is clear! I’m just gonna pull the fire alarm and get the fuck out of here.”

 

Louis keeps his head low as he looks for his seat beside Harry’s parents. He finds them easily enough. Well, Geoff finds him first and waves both of his arms to give out his location. 

 

He shuffles into the row and takes a seat next to Karen. “A bit late,” She says before she sniffs. “You smell like a barbeque, sweety.”

 

“Oh yeah. They were having a really good deal down the street.”

 

Louis, being who he is, doesn’t really pay attention to most of the ceremony. He bobs his head along to the speeches from the superintendent, special faculty members, the valedictorian. He spends a lot of time staring at the ocean of red and black gowns, trying to find Harry but the caps hide his gorgeous chocolate locks and make him unidentifiable. 

 

Hours pass before Louis sees him in line to step onto the podium and collect his diploma, his gown accentuating his height and curls mostly tucked into his cap.

 

A surge of pride and love fills Louis as Harry picks up his diploma, all the staff members there smiling at him and wishing him luck on whatever he goes on to do next. There are the few who don’t think of Harry so fondly because the amount of assignments he turns in on time, or even at all, doesn’t reflect on his understanding of all things science. It’s infuriating to them how good he is without much effort.

 

“Congrations, you done it!” Louis shouts as he runs over to Harry. Harry drops his diploma, like it means nothing, and picks Louis up when he reaches him. He even spins him around a little bit. “And now is the part where the time of your life ends and you realize that everything is meaningless.”

 

Harry laughs. His good mood is infectious and Louis can’t help but smile and then kiss him. “I--love-- you,” Harry says in between the kisses.

 

Harry sets him down when his family catches up and adjusts the cap on his head. Louis picks his diploma up for him. This is when he realizes that Liam’s been there, watching their entire movie cliche. Louis clears his throat, “Do you want me to jump in your arms too? Or?”

 

Liam snickers, “No, it’s alright.” 

 

Harry is sandwiched in between Liam and Louis in the backseat of the car, on their way to a restaurant as celebration. Harry hopes telling his parents and Liam about him and Louis going on a ‘trip across America’ won’t ruin the dinner. 

 

Harry rests his head on Louis’s chest and looks up at him. “Can’t believe you wore a snapback to my graduation,” Harry says as he reaches up to flick the visor. 

 

Louis takes Harry’s face in both of his hands and squishes his cheeks. “Hence the suit jacket, Harry. I wore it to balance it all out,” Louis replies. “I was going to come in my co- my sweatpants but, you know, societal expectations and whatnot.” Harry chuckles, catching what he caught off.

 

“Still owe you sweatpants,” he mumbles smugly. 

 

\--

 

“Where did you learn how to fly a jet?” Louis asks as he takes a seat beside him, a bag of potato chips cradled in one of his hands. “And more importantly, where the fuck did you get a jet?”

 

“The quinjet? Tony Stark,” Harry answers, almost proudly. Louis squints his eyes and smiles. 

 

“How does one acquire a fucking  _ quinjet _ from Iron Man?” Louis continues to question. He sits back in his seat and places his feet on the control panel, careful not to rest his heels on anything too risky.

 

Harry just shrugs. “Just told him that if he ever got in a fight with another superhero, like maybe if the Avengers fell out because of the government or love… or both, I would be on his side. It was really compelling, apparently,” Harry says. Louis nods in amusement as he continues to munch on his crisps. Harry puts the jet on autopilot so he can give Louis his full attention for the rest of their long flight. “We have 10 hours and a few blankets. I kind of… Want to have some fun,” Harry says, squeezing Louis’s knees. Louis nods, licking his dry lips.

 

“‘-Fuck,’” Louis says as he places down the letters on the Scrabble board. It makes Harry almost seethe with rage. He throws down the blanket wrapped around his shoulders. 

 

“‘Fuckbad’ is not a word,” Harry replies. 

 

“Okay but I’m your boyfriend,” Louis reminds him. “And I’m pregnant with your twins.”

 

Louis ends up ‘winning’ the game, which Harry will never agree on but lets him have. He grumbles as they make a nest of their blankets. Louis tackles him, knocking him over like a human-sized bowling pin and cuddles him against his will. Harry groans before softening and wrapping his arms around Louis. “Hopefully we aren’t shot out of the sky while we’re sleeping,” Harry says.    
  


“But that would be so much fun,” Louis whines. “I haven’t actually asked. Where are we going?”

 

Harry snorts, realizing he’s never actually told him either. Louis just got on a jet and let Harry fly. The level of trust is astounding. “Algeria,” He answers as he nuzzles his face against Louis’s. “It’s the last place my parents were before they fell off the face of the Earth. I think it’s our best bet at getting a solid lead. I hope it is.”

 

“... You know, I miss fighting douchebags with you,” Louis mumbles. “You know how you get off on me getting along with your family and the thought of us having a house together?”

 

“Don’t kinkshame me, Louis.”

 

“--Well, I really get off on you shooting your web to bring bad guys in my line of fire. Fuck, I love that we’re a team.”

 

Harry smiles and kisses his forehead. “I love that we’re a team too. Also I don’t get off on what you said,” Harry lies. Louis knows he does. 

 

Louis raises an eyebrow, mischief stretching over his face before one of his hands slyly dances down Harry’s body. 

 

Harry flinches as Louis wraps his hand around his soft cock, feels himself immediately start to fill up at the sensation. “You sure thinking about me,” Louis whispers into his ear, “sleeping next to you doesn’t make you feel something? What about you and me doing the dishes together in our future kitchen because we’re a team?”

 

Harry feels his skin go hot as Louis begins to gently flick his wrist. “You and I being so white together that we spend our free nights on the couch... watching Friends? You and I buying furniture at IKEA that we can’t build?... What about us making shopping lists as we look at our barren kitchen cabinets? Does that do it for you, Harry? Domesticity?”

 

“You’re a fucking villain,” Harry hisses, biting onto his bottom lip. 

 

“That isn’t far from the truth,” Louis chuckles without ceasing the movements he’s making on Harry’s dick. “Now, what about us making our own hummus?”

 

\--

 

Harry wakes up 2 hours before they reach their destination. He rubs his eyes and groggily mutters, “I have to land this thing.”

 

It was one of the only rules that Tony gave him.  _ Don’t crash the quinjet. _ So Harry’s going to do that to feel less guilty about having 6 rounds of sex in it. God… He hopes there aren’t cameras. 

 

He decides to get into his Spider Man suit. A new one since his other one was soon to be more holes than fabric. He gently nudges Louis’s side with the toe of his boot. “Wake up, time to be Deadpool,” Harry says.

 

Louis rolls onto his back and stares up at the ceiling of the jet. “I’m always Deadpool,” he replies. 

 

“Okay, well, Deadpool in clothes. Your suit preferably,” Harry snorts as he begins to pick up the blankets, destroying the nest that Louis’s come to love. 

 

Suited up, they both take seats in the cockpit to see the ground underneath them. They should be over Algeria soon and landing in Algiers. It’ll be easy.

 

Except it’s not.

 

“I hope you feel lucky we weren’t shot out of the sky while we were sleeping,” Harry says as he leans forward, looking at every monitor and flipping various switches, pressing various buttons. Louis tries to understand what is happening. “Because we’re about to be shot out wide awake.” 

 

Now Louis recognizes the missile coming for them on the monitor. “That’s considerate of them,” Louis says casually before scrambling to his feet. They have mere seconds. Louis throws a parachute at Harry, underestimating his force and knocking half the wind out of him when it hits his middle. “Fucking… square up or we’re going to die,” Louis adds, a little more harsh with Harry than he’d usually be. Because even though he’s not sure he’d exactly survive a crashing, burning jet, he’s 100% sure that Harry won’t. 

 

He turns around to pick out another parachute and doesn’t find one, “Are you fucking…”

 

He feels Harry’s strong hands on his waist before he finishes his sentence and he’s practically lifted before Harry jumps out of the jet. Louis screams because he doesn’t have a parachute but even in his flailing, Harry holds tight. Above them as they begin their descent, the missile makes contact with the quinjet and the noise is deafening, flame and smoke spitting out large pieces of metal. 

 

In the back of his mind, Harry takes note that this technically doesn’t count as crashing it.

 

Harry eventually pulls the string that releases the parachute and makes his grip on Louis even stricter as they’re met with the pull of an opposite force. He will not drop Louis. 

 

“Where are we going to land?” Louis asks as he looks to his dangling feet. They still have a long way down. 

 

“Algiers,” Harry replies, “which is where we need to be. So maybe this worked in our favor.”

 

“Does anything ever really work in our favor?”

 

The first thing that supports Louis’s claim of bad luck is that they land in the sea. The second is that, as they’re paddling to keep afloat and think of their next plan, they’re found by a boat. 

 

The light shines on them, reflecting brightly off the rippling water. And orders are split sternly at them to get on the boat. 

 

They’re knocked to their knees when they get on the deck, guns pointed to the back of their heads. An agent nears them and kneels to reach for the edge of Harry’s mask. Louis goes to stop him but he’s deterred by a bullet to his shoulder and screams, “Fucking! Shitballs!” 

 

The mask is practically ripped from Harry and he blinks his eyes at the flashlight shone on his face. The agent smirks at him, the wrinkles on this old face curving with it, and pushes open his coat to pull out his walkie talkie. “He’s come,” he says into it simply, as if his arrival was expected. Harry eyes the six-tentacled symbol engraved in his belt buckle. 

 

They’re moved onto a much bigger boat, a cargo ship actually. Burlap sacks over their heads, they’re led deeper in the cargo ship with their hands tied behind their backs. The people holding them are native to Algeria and speak in Arabic, a lack of accent nowhere to be found in their conversations. Louis doesn’t get anything important from them, only knows that the sun will be up soon.

 

Their hands are unbound and they’re both pushed into a cell. Louis takes off the sack and immediately charges into the metal bars again and again but to no avail. All he gets is a tender shoulder. “We don’t need this unnecessary bullshit right now,” Louis huffs, frustrated and running his hands over his unmasked face. He turns around to face Harry, who’s further into the cell and his face nearly expressionless. 

 

“They knew I was coming,” he says in a disheartened voice as he stares at the floor. “I… I might’ve just walked us into a trap.”

 

“Well,” Louis sighs, “we didn’t walk. We flew and then had a missile shot at us. Did you forget that? It was a pretty long parachu--”

 

“ _ Louis _ .”

 

It’s the tone he uses when he’s not in the mood for Louis’s lightheartedness, needs something more. So Louis cuts the shit. He crosses the distance between the both of them and takes both of Harry’s hands in his. “Okay. We… We fuck up a lot and get ourselves into a lot of shit but we always make it out in less than three pieces... usually. I- You were there for me when I needed help, and the danger was fucking real but you went in with me. If this is a trap, we’re going to figure a way out like we always do or we’re going to die together, going down shooting… either bullets or web,” Louis says. He quietly adds, “If I die at least.”

 

“You better die because you’d hate to be without me,” Harry says. 

 

Louis’s lips spread into a grin. “That’s the fucking truth,” Louis replies before surging forward and capturing Harry’s lips with his own. He lets go of Harry’s hands in favor of placing them on his face and leading the kiss, Harry places his own on Louis’s hips. Eventually, the liplocking is cut off by Louis. He steps back and says, “Now stop touching me. I don’t know what the laws are.” 

 

An hour passes and Louis has resorted to loudly cursing in Arabic while furiously yanking on the cell bars. He moves to another row of bars and then yanks on those. He continues until he’s practically rounded the entire cell. 

 

Harry feels a slight tingle through his spine and grabs the back of Louis’s utility belt, pulling him away from the cell door. The man from the boat appears before them again, his thick black coat exchanged for one resembling a lab coat on his shoulders. “Spider Man,” He says with a grin, dismissing Louis completely in favor of staring at Harry. He takes a deep breath. “We’ll be getting you two on land soon. The truth will be told then. I only hope you weren’t expecting too much from this trip… Because you will be severely disappointed in your findings.” Then he leaves. 

 

Whether his vague remarks are truthful or just made to unnerve him, they’re doing a lot of unnerving. “Fuck,” Harry mutters to himself as he turns around to face the wall. 

 

Frustration and uncertainty isn’t a look that Louis likes on Harry. Though Louis has already told Harry he’s fine with laying down his life for him, he knows that the chance of that happening is growing, whether in actuality or just in his mind, and it’s looming over him. 

 

He places a hand on Harry’s shoulder and squeezes it comfortingly. He hopes that the way Harry anchors him is reciprocated just the same. Harry places his own hand on top of Louis’s and sighs. “Sit down, babe,” Louis orders softly. Harry sits down with his back to the wall, his knees arched and arms rested on them. Louis takes a seat next to him and says, “I think the love of my life needs some cheering up,” as he rests his head on Harry’s shoulder. “You know bad guys, Spidey. They’re all full of shit and just want to tear you down mentally before they try it physically.

 

“We’re gonna get through it. And we’re going to figure out what happened and then go back to our lives. You’re going to have to go find a job using that big brain of yours. You’re also going to be using that big brain of yours to figure out how you’re going to tell your parents that you’re moving out,” Harry turns his head and looks at Louis, confusion on his face. Louis looks up at him with an innocent smile. “This probably wasn’t the best timing to really… tell you about it, was it?”

 

“No,” Harry answers truthfully but his eyes are full of mirth and the edges of his lips are slightly curled again. 

 

“I… I might’ve put down a payment on a house,” Louis says, voice rising in pitch as he reaches the end of the sentence. “It’s a nice little house with a big yard. The neighbors seem like they wouldn’t attempt murder if the Purge ever became reality. Perfect for ki- Us. You’ll love it.”

 

Harry nods before places a hand on Louis’s jaw and kissing him. But a thought crosses his mind and he stops. “Where’d you get the money to do that?” He asks curiously. 

 

“... You know how there’s always bank robberies?”

 

“Louis!”

 

“I just take a few bills for myself! Like $200 as a service fee or something!” Louis defends himself, voice still high. Harry face of incredulousness softens and he kisses Louis again. 

 

Another group of men comes to their cell, guns in their hands, and order them to face the wall, hands behind their backs. Harry tries to keep his composure as they roughly tie his hands together, yanking tightly at the abrasive rope. But all he wants to do is get aggressive. 

 

It’s a bad idea because bullets are typically a lot faster than Harry.

 

He glances at Louis right before the sacks go over their heads again. It would be easy for Harry to be eliminated right here, just shot through the sack, a bullet to his brain. The last thing he saw would be Louis, and he figures that would make it a little better. 

 

Next time the shrouds come off, they’re in a building. The harsh fluorescent lights hum loudly and make the concrete walls appear with a green tint. “God, this has been going on for too long. Can we just get to drama?” Louis announces, his voice bouncing around the room. “I’m sick of this shit.”

 

Louis sighs loudly as he places his hands, unbound, in his lap. Harry sputters, “How--”

 

“They didn’t take my secret knife,” Louis explains, “since it’s so close to my ass and all.” Louis crawls over and cuts the rope off of Harry. “Okay, now we need to find your web-shooters and all of my guns. I’m not leaving a single one behind with these bastards. What’s the plan?”

 

“Run, don’t get shot,” Harry answers. Louis gets ready to go but Harry takes his face in his hands, stroking his cheeks with the pads of this thumbs. “I love you,” he coos softly before pressing a kiss in between the furrows of Louis’s eyebrows. 

 

He says it like he wants it to be the final thing he says to Louis if this is the last time he’ll get the chance. It makes something bad curl in Louis’s stomach and he does his best to ignore it. “I’m going to say it back,” he says, “after we get our things.” 

 

Louis takes the lead and kicks down the door, sounding an alarm. The hall they step into is empty but they don’t waste time getting out of there. “Go, go,” Harry orders, pushing Louis along to the only exit which only leads them into a larger corridor. They don’t stop running. 

 

Certain paths are blocked off by walls of men with guns, giving Harry and Louis no other choice but to go the other direction, the other courses free of any gunmen. 

 

It doesn’t raise many alarms at first until it does. As a person who’s been shot plenty of times, Louis notices things. The first is that he’s not in pain. At all. When they shoot at the pair, the bullets hit the ceiling or the parallel walls or the ground behind their feet. No bullets hit them or ever graze them. The second is the lack of teamwork. Harry and Louis aren’t being surrounded, aren’t being cornered, and are hardly being chased. Instead they’re intimidated by the groups of gunmen who obstruct certain halls and made to run elsewhere, being indirectly led somewhere. 

 

And it’s wrong, it’s all wrong and a part of some larger scheme. But by the time Louis realizes this, it’s too late. 

 

He and Harry burst through the doors to the weapons room, one figure in there waiting for them but acting like she’s just been caught off guard. She drops the weapon she’s pretending to take inventory of and straightens out her back as she looks mostly at Harry.

 

The woman’s appearance is a telltale with her long brunette hair that ends just under her shoulders and slightly obscures the Hydra symbol embroidered on her jacket, soft round cheeks adorning her slim face, and her teal eyes. Louis recognizes the features.

 

Harry knows who she is. And the shared hesitation from her says that she knows who Harry is too. 

 

Harry swallows the lump in his dry throat as he attempts to croak out “Mo--”

 

But he’s cut short when a bullet lacerates the flesh of his shoulder and brings him to his knees with its force. He holds himself up with his aching arm as his other hand applies pressure to the wound that soaks the surviving fabric around it and drips through his fingers. He stares at the spinning and tilting floor as pain rushes through his body, sees everything monochromatic. The concoction of pain, shock, and confusion rises in Harry’s stomach and he releases it on the floor in front of him.

 

Louis goes to tend to him but is held back, not really by the arm wrapped around his waist but the hand holding the gun to his temple and the other gun pointed at the back of Harry’s head. Harry, who’s bleeding from a shoulder wound and barely propping himself up over his own vomit. It pains Louis not to be able to care for him in this moment, wrap him up in a blanket and switch on some stupid fucking programme that Harry loves so much and Louis doesn’t understand why. It’s similar with Niall and that HBO show Girls, but that actually makes Louis want to punch him in the face. It’s making him angry right now. 

 

Harry gets to his feet and stumbles, knocking into some of the shelves and making equipment clammer onto the floor. Louis fights the instinct to reach out for him because he doesn’t know what movements will make the goon behind him pull the trigger. Harry falls to the floor again but is lifted from it by another gunman and they’re both taken away. 

 

Their rope restraints are replaced with thick chains that bind their arms to their torsos and this round, they’ve decided to tie their ankles as well. 

 

Harry is sat up against the wall, matching the same Harry back in the boat who was afraid he led himself and his lover into a trap. But now he knows what the trap was.

 

Louis wiggles his entire body to get near him, nudging Harry’s unbandaged shoulder with his forehead. “Maybe… Maybe it was just a glitch in the matrix,” Louis tries but Harry doesn’t find it comforting or funny. Louis sighs in defeat and just sits there beside him. Suddenly he remembers and quietly says, “I love you too.”

 

He knows Harry will be able to heal from every gunshot, knife wound, and other bodily injuries after this ends and they go home but he’s not sure if he’ll heal from everything else. 

 

\--

 

Harry wakes up the next day, he thinks, with a phantom ache in his shoulder and the love of his life on his other shoulder. The metal door across the room taunts him, reflecting the lights from above and resembling a metaphorical light at the end of the tunnel. Harry wishes.

 

Then the door unlocks. The door handle has moved only slightly before Louis wakes, gasping as he sits up, “I’m up! I’m up!” He takes in his surroundings and remembers where they are. The man who’s made it his job to shake Harry up steps into the room, wearing a tailored suit under the same white coat slung on his shoulders. “Who… the fuck are you?” Louis asks in exasperation because he wants to be on first name basis if he’s going to be all mysteriously indirect and saying shit to his boyfriend that he certainly doesn’t appreciate.

 

“The Finisher,” He answers with a grin. “Or Karl Fiers, if you prefer.”

 

“You look like you have a foot fetish,” Louis blurts out, and the stupid grin on Karl’s old face falls.

 

“ _ What _ ?” He asks, taken aback by the random remark. 

 

To his side, Louis hears a little snort and sees the end of Harry’s lips curled up. So naturally, he has to continue. “A fetish… for feet,” Louis clarifies dumbly. “So, Karl  _ Feets _ , do you have a foot fetish or not? What’s your preference, sucking or licking toes? What about ankles? Because I have gotten a compliment or two on mine. We can make a deal. Do you li--”

 

“Enough,” He cuts Louis off. He clears his throat and brings his gaze to Harry, whose meager smile is now gone. Harry doesn’t look back at him, keeps his eyes trained on the chains tied around him. “I mean to tell you that I’m sorry about yesterday’s incident. We didn’t intend for you to find your birth mother but I did warn you, didn’t I? I told yo--” 

 

“Foot Fetish Man,” Louis says. 

 

Karl rolls his eyes and continues, “I told you that you’d be disa--”

 

“I’m Karl Fiers and I suck on toes.”

 

“I told you you’d be disappointed!” Karl rushes out angrily, doing his best to ignore the red-masked man trying to talk over him. He fixes his hair as he adds, “Did you come here expecting to find that they were dead? Innocent? You saw her. They’re alive, Harry, and they work for Hydra.”

 

“Foot Fetish Man! Foot Fetish Man!” Louis attempts to scream over him. “Feet! Feet! Feet! F üße!  F üße! ”

 

Karl growls in frustration and turns to leave as Louis continues the mantra. Louis doesn’t hear the whip of wind under his shouts. Karl spins on his heels to leave them with one last thing, “I was considering to ask them to bring in a meal for you two. But that’s more kindness than you deserve. I’d rather you two have the life taken from you in the form of starvation. I’ll see you two, hopefully dead, in three weeks.” 

 

“All because I exposed your foot fetish?” Louis asks as he finally exits and slams the door firm. They hear the sound of the lock being flipped. “Well… I think we should discuss now. I can regenerate limbs so I think I should be the one who gets eaten. We can plan it out, like one limb every three days maybe?”

 

Harry turns to look at him and, for the first time that day, Louis sees the different shades of green in his eyes. A faint smile comes to Harry’s face again and he says, “No need for that.” He shakes one of his hands and Louis hears the rattling of keys. He looks down at Harry’s lap and sees keys in his hands. 

 

“H-how did you…,” Louis’s voice trails off from astonishment. 

 

“I don’t have a secret knife near my ass but I have a few tricks up my sleeve,” Harry says before shooting web up to the ceiling and using it to get to his feet, keeping his balance. It’s both an idiom and literal, Louis remembers why he’s so in love. 

 

Harry had eyed his web-shooters the moment after he puked and knew that if he wanted to get out with Louis, he needed them. Otherwise, he was useless in their escape. So he made a dramatic fall, snatching his web-shooters and getting them on before anyone saw. He’s never had an acting class in his life so he’s a little proud of himself. 

 

He holds onto the web until he stops wobbling on his feet. “C’mon, your turn,” Harry says as he hands him the web. Louis groans for two seconds before repeating Harry’s actions. Harry grabs the lock on Louis’s back, trying to push each key into it until one slides right in. It’s a lot harder to do with hands that can’t reach higher than his waist. 

 

The chains fall with a loud clunk. Louis takes the keys from Harry to also free himself of the heavy restraints around his ankles. “God, my beautiful ankles, my beautiful gay ankles,” Louis mutters as he circles the joint to get the stiffness to dissipate. He then moves onto the task of getting Harry out of his chains as well. 

 

Once his hands and feet are free, he steps forward and places his hands on Louis’s hips. “Thank you,” he says softly. 

 

“For calling Karl Fiers a foot fetishist?” Louis asks, making Harry smile brightly at the memory from only a few minutes ago. Louis never wants to see that smile leave his face. Besides his incredible healing factor, it’s Harry and his stupid smile that makes him feel invincible. 

 

“Yes,” Harry answers, “and also because I know I wouldn’t be able to do any of this without you here.”

 

He punctuates that sentence with a gentle squeeze to Louis’s hips, making his head go a little dizzy which is inappropriate because they’re about to redo yesterday’s attempt at getting their weapons back. Or at least, Louis’s. 

 

“If you’re gonna kiss me, it’s gonna have to wait because it’ll waste time,” Louis says as he steps away. He suddenly becomes enraged as he adds, “And fuck! Now I’m wasting time by explaining all of it instead of kissing you! Fuck!”

 

Harry chuckles before pulling his boyfriend along. 

 

There is no plan to direct Harry and Louis to any particular room this time. The guards are scattered around the facility but also sparse, most probably leaving with Karl Fiers. 

 

Louis takes the lead, engaging every gunman into a short lived fist fight after Harry rips their gun from their hands. In their trail, there lays unconscious men. Not dead, much to Louis’s dismay. 

 

They make it to the weapons room again, and Louis notices the way that Harry hesitates with his hand pressed on the door. He gives Harry a little nod of encouragement and lets him decide when to step in. It’s likely his biological parents are still in there, he’s not going to rush him even if Karl Fiers is getting further and further away with every passing second. They’ll get him. 

 

The door gives a deep, hollow creak as Harry pushes it open. The noise makes a shudder go through Harry’s body. It’s so quiet, he’s not expecting her to be standing there by the bulletin board and going over the inventory list. He looks around for his father and finds no trace of him. It’s unsettling and Harry doesn’t know how to approach the situation. But Louis isn’t going to try to steer this for him. He needs to do this for himself. 

 

“Logan said you were good people,” he breaks the silence. Anne pauses and turns her head to the side to listen closely. “He told me you two couldn’t have been traitors, and I believed it.”

 

“Did we disappoint you?” She asks, her voice beautiful but steely.  _ Disappoint _ . Harry is so tired of that word, haunting him since he was able to fathom that he wasn’t like Liam, his parents weren’t the ones he shared DNA with. 

 

He doesn’t answer her. 

 

“Why are you doing this?” He asks instead, voice shaking. “Are they keeping you here? I can… I can take you back. Take you home. You can see Queens again.”

 

She spins on her heels and faces him, her expression cool and unaffected though the son she hasn’t seen in years is in the room. “Hydra is going to take over the world, Harry. Your father and I are going to be on the right side when it happens. And no, we are not prisoners. We’re allowed to go anywhere we please,” she responds. 

 

“Anywhere?” She nods. Harry steps closer. “Then why didn’t you come back… To see me?”

 

He regrets it the second it leaves his lips. It’s stupid of him to make himself feel small, to let her make him feel small. He’s making himself too vulnerable and he doesn’t know where he stands between ‘son’ and ‘foe’ to her. 

 

“Did we disappoint you?” She asks again. 

 

The feeling of fragileness slowly leaves him and in his place is the accumulation of all his emotions over his entire life without any word from his biological parents. And now the words are  _ Did we disappoint you? _

 

“Look at me!” She yells as she walks forward. Louis gets into a defensive stance. Even though this is Harry’s mother, she’s not making the best first impression right now. “Did we disappoint you? Because I’ll tell you about real disappointment.”

 

Harry shakes his head, already knowing where this is going. “He said you two wanted me. Don’t lie to me,” Harry says, eyes already beginning to burn. She circles him like a shark and he turns so his back is never to her. “Logan was there. You two wanted me,” Harry adds, sounding like he’s trying to convince himself and struggling to believe it. 

 

“Logan is a fool,” She spits. 

 

“No.”

 

“He was wrong about us being CIA, you still trust his perception?” She steps forward, Harry steps back. “I am  _ not _ your mother. You were a mistake,” she says.

 

“No.”

 

“You wasted nine months of our lives.”

 

“ _ No _ .” Harry’s back presses against the cool concrete and he’s trapped. 

 

“Leaving you was a relief. You were nothing to us but a setback.”

 

Louis’s eyes glance over to the katanas to the left. And he struggles coming to a decision that will cause Harry less pain. But he watches as she places a firm hand on his sternum and winds back her fist. Louis is like the wind as he grabs his katanas and sprints over, ready. 

 

“Don’t!” Harry screams at Louis, voice ragged, just as she strikes. Harry manages to dodge it and he hears the concrete next to his ear crumble away as she pulls her fist back, dust coats her knuckles. He locks eyes with Louis as her hand goes to his throat, “Don’t touch her, Pool.” Louis drops his katanas and feels like he’s just seen Harry’s light die, blown out like a candle. His crestfallen boy just breathes in air before her hand closes tightly around his throat. Louis doesn’t want to watch but he can’t look away. 

 

Harry’s eyes fill with tears but he doesn’t stray from her gaze as his lungs begin to feel like they’re burning in his chest. He reaches a trembling hand up and, with his limited reach, his fingertips barely graze her cheek. Her cold cheek.

 

In another life, Harry might’ve had his birth parents there from the start. He wouldn’t have been anything special, he wouldn’t be Spider Man. He would’ve just been Harry Styles, a boy trying to be a scientist through good grades and scholarship rides. But he would’ve had his mother and his father. He could’ve had a normal life, which is all he’s ever wanted. And maybe in that life, Louis could have the one he was supposed to have too. It’s likely Harry isn’t apart of it but Louis would’ve been happy with his wife and his daughter, his lack of disfigurement. 

 

They both could have stability if this was another life.

 

His sadness that this is currently his reality makes him choke up before he makes his next move. He shoots his web to her free hand and sticks it to her torso, spraying more over her to keep bound. He saw the way the stone crumbled under her force, he’s not going to take any chances. He uses his other web-shooter on the arm choking him, using extra force to make it meet the same mess of web her other arm is trapped in. The tears don’t seem to stop as he bites his lip and continues to shoot web. He stops and spins her by her shoulders until her back is to him. His heart pounds faster than the footfalls of a stampede of wild horses as she struggles in his grip. 

 

He takes in a deep, shaky breath before he croaks out a broken, “I’m sorry.” He stares up at the ceiling as he snakes one hand over her shoulder and places it on the opposite side of her face. His other hand cradles the back of her head, and he twists firmly to the left and upward. The abrupt sound of whirring, crunching metal, squealing springs, and wires snapping fills the room and then exits. 

 

Harry drops the mangled android and the moment feels still, time has stopped. Louis’s feet feel stuck to the ground, and he needs a signal before he can move. He finds one when Harry inhales sharply as it all rushes back to him, air and what he’s done. He hurries over, sticking his arms under Harry’s and letting him fall against him with a loud sob. Louis bends his knees and slowly settles the both of them on the ground, hiding Harry’s face in his neck so he doesn’t have to look anymore. 

 

Louis wishes that their healing factors also included things like trauma and heartbreak. Maybe that would give them exactly what they need.

 

“She wasn’t h-her,” Harry hiccups, reaching up to wipe away his tears. She wasn’t her yet it still hurt so fucking much. “I need… I need to know w-what happened to them.”

 

Louis comfortingly combs his fingers through Harry’s mess of curls and nods. “We’ll find out. There… There has to be something in here that’ll tell us,” Louis really fucking hopes there is. He hopes that for once, luck finally graces them because since the start of the trip that hasn’t really been the case. “Can you do me a favor?”He asks as he pulls up his mask to uncover his face. Harry sniffles and nods. “Can you close your eyes for me?”

 

Harry knows why. He takes a breath before sealing his eyelids shut. He feels Louis’s grip around him loosen until he’s gone. He reaches out but coils back because he knows that Louis will return to him.

 

Louis carefully slides his arms underneath the broken cyborg and lifts her with a quiet grunt, careful not to lose her head. He steps over to the clear table on the opposite side of the room and sets her down. It’s so sickening that Harry had to do this to the image of his birth mother. He can’t begin to imagine what that feels like. 

 

He kicks down the door to the closet in the room and he’s in luck because he finds a tarp folded away in one of the shelves. He covers her up and takes a moment before saying, “You can open your eyes now.”

 

Harry does so just as Louis turns from the table and makes his way back. Louis sighs as he kneels down beside Harry and wraps his arms around him. “I’m going to find Karl Fiers, baby. And I’m going to put his balls in a blender and make him drink it,” Louis promises him, going so far as to extend his pinky. Harry manages a teary-eyed smile and he wraps his own pinky around Louis’s. 

 

First, they need to find out what really happened. 

 

Louis feels better holding his two guns in his hands as they round the corners in the building. They run into a total of 10 guards which don’t get the same treatment as the ones they met before the getting to weapons room. They get a bullet right between their eyes because Louis needs to purge himself of his frustration at the world. Killing bad guys is the best catharsis for him. 

 

They make it to what they assume to be Karl’s office. File cabinets line the wall furthest from them and they both look at each other before running and practically tearing each drawer off. Louis glides his fingers over the manila folders, creating a fluttering sound until his stomach drops. Harry is looking through the file cabinet A-C but his parents were both filed away under the surname Styles. 

 

“Harry,” he breathes. He doesn’t want to know what happened to them before Harry does. 

 

“Did you find something?” He asks as he shuts the drawer he’s searching and strides over. He looks at the folder and freezes when he sees the names. They both take the folder over to the desk and set it down. “Do I… Do I open it? Am I ready to open it?” 

 

“I don’t know. You’ve had a shitty couple of hours so take your time,” Louis speaks honestly. He sighs. “But I think you deserve to know the truth. The real truth.” 

 

Harry takes a breath and holds out one of his hands, which Louis immediately takes and squeezes reassuringly. He tucks his thumb under the folder and slowly opens it. The first thing they see is a report with Harry’s father pictured in the corner and a large red  _ TERMINATED _ stamped over his face. Harry goes to the next paper in the folder and it’s the same report with his mother’s face this time, same red stamp. 

 

He lets go of Louis’s hand to rummage through the rest of it, finding a detailed entry about the day his parents died. 

 

He knew that it was more likely than anything else that the stamps on their faces meant they were killed but it doesn’t stop the maelstrom of emotion from making him shake as he reads about it, devours it. They were CIA agents, like Logan told him, sent on a mission to work undercover and expose a spy ring led by the Red Skull here in Algeria. They got everything they needed and then fled. Their plane was barely off the ground before it quickly came back down, crashing and killing the both of them on January 23rd. Just over a week before Harry’s first birthday. The Finisher, or Karl Fiers, is credited for their assassination. 

 

Harry swallows the lump in his throat as he then goes through the pictures. Pictures of their belongings before they were burned so the only trace left of them on this world was a folder and their son. 

 

His heartbeat picks up and tears well in his eyes as he finds several photographs, old and scorched at the edges. But he makes out the images just fine. His two biological parents, smiling. His mother holding a baby wrapped up in a blue-striped blanket. A sleeping baby boy with a tuft of soft brown hair, seemingly smiling in her arms. This is all he needs to reject whatever poison the android managed to get in his head. He chuckles wetly and goes to wipe his eyes. “We need… We need to take this folder,” Harry says as he closes it all up carefully. “I’m going to clear their names. Somehow.”

 

It doesn’t sound like an easy task but it’s more than just Louis’s personal belief, it’s fact that Harry can get anything done. 

 

“I need… To make a call,” Harry adds as he picks up the telephone receiver nearby. It’s an old thing, blocky and grey with a spiraled wire. “Otherwise, we have no way home.”

 

“Are we going after that bitch, Karl?” Louis asks carefully.

 

Harry pauses with his finger just an inch from the numbered buttons. “We will. But… Not today. I just want to clear my parents names because they died trying… To do good,” Harry answers. “They weren’t traitors.”

 

\--

 

Harry pulls on his mask before walking out of the building with Louis. SHIELD agents rush passed them, masked and armed though Louis did more than a pretty good job of eliminating any threat.

 

Harry is still tired and shaken up from the previous day but he’s hopeful, content, relieved. Feels like he can start living without a cloud of confusion hanging over him. Louis interrupts his internal monologue with the request, “My feet hurt. Will you carry me?” Harry answers by stopping his movement and bending his knees. Louis giddily claps his hands and jumps onto Harry’s back. Without the cloud and the sun as his boyfriend, Harry feels the world is a lot brighter. Louis presses his face against Harry’s, smiling underneath his mask, and says, “Let’s go home and take a nap, Bug Boy.”

 

“What’d you call me?” Harry asks with a giggle as he begins to run to the quinjet provided just for them.

 

He sets Louis down just before they get into the jet and find none other but Tony Stark sitting in it while reading on his phone. His hair is gelled back and his expensive suit still looking crisp after a 10-hour flight. “These jets cost money, you know,” he says without looking away from his screen. “If you mess this one up, you’re fighting two wars for me, Henry,” he finally looks up and pockets his phone. “To keep that from happening, I’m going to pilot. So keep it in your pants, boys.”

 

Harry and Louis blush furiously under their masks but they’re both sure that even with them on, it’s still quite obvious. “Yeah, you two don’t know what a transceiver is, do you?” Tony asks as he goes to ready themselves for lift off. 

 

Louis is asleep when Harry goes through the pale manila folder again. In the dim lighting of the jet, he has to squint as he rereads the report. “What’s that?” Tony asks, peering over it. 

 

“Uh, a mission report. About my biological parents,” He answers as Tony takes a seat beside him. “They were… Assassinated.”

 

“Why do you have this?” 

 

“People think they were double agents and betrayed the CIA,” Harry says in response. “I just wanted to set the record straight. I don’t know how though but I’m going to do it.”

 

Tony just stares at it silently before clearing his throat and adjusting the way he sits. He clears his throat. “Give this to me,” He says as he carefully reaches for it from Harry’s grip. Harry just lets go, trusting him. “I’ll take care of this. Don’t worry about it, kid. The guy who did this… he’s gonna get caught. I’ll let you know when it gets done.”

 

Harry watches him stand up and walk away with the manila folder, pulling out his phone to immediately set out on fixing his parent’s traitor statuses. He takes his seat as pilot again. Harry takes a moment before standing up and going further into the jet and finding Louis curled up on the floor, his suit still on and his mask resting just above his dreaming eyes. Harry smiles. 

 

He peels his suit down to his hips, freeing his upper body, and he lies down behind Louis. He wraps his arms around Louis’s middle and he feels him push back into his hold with a little sigh. In his life of instability, he has this. A home with a beating heart that will probably never stop beating. 

 

Louis has voiced many times, both awake and asleep, how Harry is his anchor, has confided in Harry that he makes the voices in his head quiet down or even completely silences the fuck out of them, and has admitted that sometimes when he fights bad guys and he fucks up so bad that he’s only a head and torso on the ground, he feels okay and is able to ignore most of the pain because he remembers that once he regrows his legs he gets to come home to a beautiful boy. (And hopefully hug him if his arms have regrown by then too.)

 

The prospect of domesticity definitely changed Louis, maybe it doesn’t  _ physically _ affect him like Harry but there is change there. It’s a large part of Louis’s personality to be very carefree, that’s never going to really change about him and Harry doesn’t want it to. But he’s just a bit more thoughtful now, more aware of consequences. Harry likes to think it’s because he has things that he really loves now, things that he’s afraid to lose any precious time with. He’ll still go up against groups of men, much bigger than him and with more powerful firearms though. He just tries to get shot way less. 

 

Harry doesn’t think that Louis will understand that it’s the same for him as well. He often feels like he’s floating away but Louis is able to wrap around him and pull him back in, like a rope. Louis is the one thing that’s firm and that he’s sure of, something he’ll never let go of. He’s never had any reason to think otherwise. 

 

In a sleepy voice Louis asks, “Do you think we’ll finally be able to meet Dorito Man?”

 

Harry chuckles into his nape at the code name and says, “I think I can ask Tony to arrange a meet up with Steve.”

 

“Cool,” he says. “Just don’t mention where you’re from to him.”

 

“Why?”

 

“Because he’s from Brooklyn, Harry. You two will… bond over being New Yorkers and  _ hot dogs _ ,” Louis says it in something akin to disgust and ends it with something akin to a Boston accent. But Harry’s feelings aren’t hurt. He laughs and holds Louis a little tighter. “Just don’t fucking do it.”

 

“You’ll have to fight me to stop me,” Harry teases. Louis responds by getting on top of Harry, pinning him down. 

 

“I’ll squish you, you arachnid fuck.” 

 

“Wh-what did I tell you two?” Tony shouts from where he’s getting out of the pilot seat with feigned anger, a magazine rolled up in his hand like he’s going to swat them with it. 

 

“I’m sorry!” Louis squeals as he rolls back onto the floor and tries to hide under a blanket. Harry just laughs at the whole scene, his belly bubbling happily. 

 

It feels good to laugh again.

 

\--

 

Harry sighs as he sits at the empty table. He stands up and steps into the living room, switching on the TV and going to a news channel. There’s an armed robbery at a large jewelry store just a few miles away. Harry takes a moment and then goes to his shared bedroom to suit up. 

 

Louis is scared. 

 

Louis has a gun to his head and his gun pointed to someone else’s head. Getting a bullet in his fucking skull isn’t one of his favorite pastimes but it isn’t the reason for his fear. He’s out numbered, and even though being outnumbered isn’t rare, he usually has it under control when Harry is by his side. And that’s the problem. He’s trying to stay away from him but he’s sure to come swinging in any second now, like his fucking savior.

 

Louis hears the splatter of web. Only one bullet is fired, and it’s his. The man in a balaclava is now stuck to the ground, all of his limbs bound in web, and the other man is dead on the floor. 

 

Harry drops down next to Louis and raises his arms in question and frustration, “What the fuck, Pool?”

 

“Nice to see you too, darling,” Louis replies as he changes the mag in his pistol. 

 

Harry really needs to have a word with him because of how he’s been acting. But when more gunfire comes, he realizes it has to wait just a bit longer. He and Louis practically go into autopilot, they’ve done this so many times. The both turn themselves around and watch each other’s backs as they take care of business. They trust each other, they trust each other to make sure the other one is safe and they won’t be stabbed in the back, literally. 

 

They trust each other, damn it. Harry decides then, it can’t fucking wait. “Why did you leave?” He asks as he shoots web in the faces of masked men to obscure their visions before going to tie their ankles together as well. 

 

“Wh-”

 

“Why have you been acting weird all week?” Harry adds. 

 

Louis huffs as he shoots someone else in the head, “That’s just my personality.”

 

Harry stops, turns to him, and groans loudly. “That’s not what I mean! You know that’s not what I mean!” He shouts as he grabs Louis’s shoulder, turning him around until they’re face-to-face again. “If you’re going to avoid talking to me about whatever it is that’s bothering you at home, we’re going to fucking talk about it now.”

 

“I don’t even fucking know what’s going on!” Louis whines. “What are you going on about? Like Christ. You’re a tease in bed, you’re a tease during arguments. I don’t say this often but give it to me straight, babe! It’s torture.”

 

“I try to but you keep fucking leaving whenever I try to talk to you or when we’re alone together!” Harry is starting to get frustrated. He wants to take off his mask just to pull at his hair. “You literally left me at the breakfast table to ‘take a piss’ and never came back! Like I was some fucking… bad first date! And now we’re here.”

 

“Okay… That was a bad one,” Louis agrees.

 

Harry sighs, “So please, just tell me what’s wrong. I-I don’t want to be a Nicholas Sparks straight couple cliche because we don’t communicate.”

 

“Okay, I will,” Louis replies and sees Harry’s shoulders sag in relief. He should feel bad. “But you’re going to have to wait because…”

 

He then runs in the direction of a display counter and jumps, kicking the face of the man who’s behind it with his sniper rifle pointed at Harry. Harry can’t help but sigh again. He knew that being in love and dating a man who pirouettes with his katanas during a fight would consist of a lot of trial and error. And while he’s not wishing for anyone else, he just wishes it were easier. It kills him when he doesn’t know what Louis wants and all he ever wants is for Louis to have everything he needs. 

 

“Trial and error,” Harry mumbles to himself as he walks over. He finds Louis punching the now unconscious man, his other fist is grabbing onto his bloodied shirt collar. “Do you want me to guess what it is?” Harry tries. 

 

Louis drops the man and turns around. “Think you can guess and fight off a group of men?” He asks, pointing to the other men coming out of the vault room, duffel bags at their shoulders and guns in their hands. 

 

“I can do anything for you,” Harry replies, voice going soft because he knows that’ll help break Louis. It’s evil but so necessary. He can  _ see _ Louis shudder, and he smirks under his mask before spinning on his heels to face the group of men assessing the murder (see: Louis) and destruction (see: also Louis). 

 

As they start their sprint towards the large mass of guns and testosterone, Harry guesses, “You want to break up with me.”

 

Louis gasps like he’s been shot. “Fuck no! Guess again, idiot. We’re a forever deal,” Louis denies immediately before yelling as he jumps into the fight and tackles a man twice his size. 

 

“The sex isn’t good enough for you anymore.”

 

“Nope! I enter the Garden of Eden every time I get into your pants!”

 

As Harry blocks punches and throws some of his own, he asks, “Can you give me a hint at least?”

 

“Uhhhhhh,” Louis drones on as he spins someone around before clocking them in the face. He tends to kill less when he’s around Harry because he knows he doesn’t like it. It’s true love. “It’s… It’s not… Fuck. I don’t know. It’s not about me wanting to… get rid of you. It’s like the opposite.”

 

“So what? You want to take another step in our relationship?”

 

“Uh, yes,” Louis answers a bit timidly as he slips out his katanas from his back. 

 

“Then why are you afraid of telling me that?” Harry replies. “All I want to do is spend the rest of my life with you. Do you want to get engaged? Is that it?”

 

“That… Should probably be… The next step… But it’s not what’s on my mind,” Louis says, pausing ever so often to slice at several appendages. He’s making this more difficult than it has to be for Harry but it isn’t easy coming out with this thought. It isn’t like the time he told Harry about wanting to try figging, which was a god awful idea that had Louis throwing out every piece of ginger they had. Watersports was weird but not as bad. 

 

“What then? Promise rings?” 

 

“ _ Baby _ , no,” Louis replies, hoping that’s hint enough. His boyfriend is a fucking nerdy ass scientist, he should’ve figured it out even before Louis did.

 

Harry knocks another guy out and turns to Louis. “What do you want, Pool?” He tries again, thinking he’ll be brave enough to voice it this time. 

 

“It’s a really famous Justin Bieber song, has the most dislikes on YouTube.”   
  


“You want an iTunes gift card? What?” 

 

A long pause. “You graduated. From university. At the top of your class,” Louis realizes as he lets go of the dude he’s just finished strangling. He groans and straightens out his back, pistolwhipping a man trying to sneak up on him. He’ll have to really explain this to Harry, whose brain has clearly been slowing down because of all the stellar lovemaking making his brain drip out from his dick. Louis is good. “I want… I want… a--”

 

A deafening gunshot fills the room and Louis sees the red on Harry’s suit that doesn’t match the shared red they both love. “Baby!” Louis screams as he unsheathes a katana and throws it in the direction the bullet came. It pierces the burly man right in the chest and he drops his gun as he feels the life slowly slip away from him. 

 

Harry plummets to the floor. Louis kneels beside him. Harry shakes in pain but pulls his mask up to his forehead. “Baby? Y-you want a baby?” He asks as he reaches his arms out and caresses Louis’s face, a smile coming to his face even with the hurt filling him. 

 

“I do. I want a little… a little babypool to run around our house and draw on the walls and I want to kick you out of bed when she wakes up in the middle of the night crying… And if you think that dying is going to get you out of it, I’m filing for a divorce,” Louis replies wetly. He’s always been soft about Harry getting shot. He’ll never feel like Harry isn’t something he’s able to lose. 

 

Harry chuckles and his face screws up in pain. “We’re not even married yet,” Harry says. “So try again, dickhead.”

 

Louis simply raises his arm and shoots a bullet into the display counter, shattering the glass. He blindly reaches around until his fingers catch something and he brings it into Harry’s eyeline. The diamond on the ring glitters even in the minimal light they have. (Louis accidentally missed and shot out the lights earlier.)

 

“We’re at work right now so,” He clears his throat, “Spider Man… Will you t--”

 

“Yes,” Harry answers immediately. 

 

“I-I wasn’t fucking finished,” Louis huffs. Harry’s smirking. “If you didn’t have a hole in your stomach right now, I’d punch you.”

 

“You’re such a gentleman,” Harry says. Louis rolls his eyes and takes his hand. The ring barely makes it to his first knuckle and the silver contrasts so heavily with the spider web texture over red. Harry still loves it. “... Can you tell me what you want again?”

 

“Okay, now you’re getting on my nerves,” Louis says but fondness lines his words. 

 

“But we just got engaged.”

 

Louis smiles underneath his mask and he shyly says, “I want a baby.” 

 

“I’ll give you a baby.”

 

\--

 

“You’re going to regret this, you demon,” Louis hisses as he chases the diapered villain around the house who leaves a trail of toilet paper in her wake. “Harry, fucking call Quicksilver!” He yells. His volume only encourages the aforementioned villain to squeal. Louis despises her. She’s too much like him. 

 

“He’s still mad at us because of last time,” Harry says, voice being carried from the kitchen. He dries his hands on a dishtowel and decides it’s time to deal with the shenanigans of the day. He steps into the living room and sees Louis chasing around Nova. He leans against the doorway, arms crossed over his chest and smiles. 

 

Louis stops chasing to stare at him. With hair he hasn’t cut in a few months, too busy raising a daughter to deal with crime enough to complain about stuffing his hair in a mask, and a light blue button up, he’s a prince. He’s become more of a dream through the years, and his dreaminess only spiked when they became fathers. It feels like his vision has gone a magical pink.

 

His rosy vision only lasts another second because he hears a loud thump and sees that Nova has ran into a wall. Harry gets that tingle up his spine and everything slows down as he sees the first twitch of the family photo hung just above her. He shoots his web, latching it onto her diaper and pulling her towards him. His wailing baby makes it safely into his arms just as the frame hits the ground. He smiles as he wipes her tears and he bounces her, “You’re so lucky I have these web-shooters, Va.” He begins to walk around the house to calm her. Louis sighs as he realizes he’ll have to clean up the mess of toilet paper. 

 

Louis finds Harry in Nova’s nursery. Nova is dressed in red-fleece pajamas and Harry is gently swinging her above her crib mattress from his web. He slowly lowers her onto it when he’s sure he’s lulled her to sleep. 

 

Louis snakes his arms around Harry’s waist and holds him. “Do you think Nova even knows the extent of how fucking cool we are?” Louis asks quietly. “We’re never going to go to those Bring Your Parents to School things, are we? Unless we want her classmates to know one of her fathers is a fucking spider.” 

 

Harry snorts and turns around. He presses a kiss to Louis’s brow bone and coos, “Let’s go to bed.”

 

Harry has the plan of getting into some plaid pajama pants but Louis steals them from him so he settles for just his boxer briefs. He and Louis meet in the middle of their squeaky mattress, facing each other and arms reaching out. Louis noses at Harry’s collarbone and sighs sleepily. Harry listens to the beat of his heart, his refuge inside of Louis’s ribcage. 

 

They fall asleep for a few hours until they’re woken up by shrill sounds of Nova crying from her room and their monitor. Louis kicks Harry’s leg and grumbles sleepily, “It’s your turn.”

 

Harry inhales sharply as he lifts himself out of bed, almost unwillingly. “There must be something fucked up about this system because it’s been my turn for a year and a half now,” He says, voice low and rough. 

 

“Welcome to America.”

 

“That makes no sense.”

 

“Yes, it does.” Harry snorts as he rubs his eyes and starts the path to his daughter’s bedroom. 

 

Without his web-shooters, he reaches into the crib and holds her to his chest. He coos and rocks her in his arms as she slowly calms down. “C’mon, my little supernova,” he says, hushed. He watches her eyelids open and shut slowly. In his life of instability, he has this.

 

Once he’s sure she’s drifted off again, he places her back in her crib and returns to his bedroom on the tips of his toes. 

 

“My Priapus has returned,” Louis announces quietly but in this hour, it’s carried. 

 

“You have to stop calling me that,” Harry says as he climbs back into bed with a smile. “Nova is going to find out who he is and be horrified that her dads had a long-running dick joke.”

 

Louis curls his arm around Harry and returns to his position. “You don’t even hate it,” Louis comments smugly. “She ran around the whole house nearly naked with a roll of toilet paper. That little shit. Jokes on her, she’ll have to bury me one day.”

 

Harry chuckles and lets a beat grow between them. “Do you… Do you think she will?” He asks vaguely but Louis knows what he’s referring to. 

 

“I don’t know,” Louis says. With scars all over his body, it’s hard to know if he’s aging since wrinkles would likely just blend in with everything else. He also doesn’t have hair, leaving him no evidence of age in the color gray. He doesn’t know. It’s a thought that keeps him up at night. “I hope so,” he adds.

 

“Sorry, I shouldn’t have made you think of that.”

 

“Was probably already thinking of it,” Louis assures him. “It’s always somewhere in my brain, voices yelling at me.”

 

Harry kisses his forehead, and Louis feels a pleasant silence fill his head. “I love you,” Harry says, his heart aching as it always does when it hits him just how much. “God, I love you so much. And I love our daughter and our house and our life.”

 

“Didn’t think life could be this good?”

 

“Well when the closest you’ve been to hugging your mother is breaking the neck of an android that looks like her, it’s hard to be optimistic,” he chuckles as he says it. “I think I knew. Just thought I’d have to wait forever for it to be like this.”

 

Louis strokes his face and kisses him. “Do you think Nova is going to follow in her parents’ footsteps?” He asks. 

 

“God, I hope not,” Harry answers, a faux shudder going through him. “If she gets bitten by a radioactive spider, I’ll deal with that.”

 

Louis giggles and kisses him again. He presses his face back into Harry’s throat and sighs happily, “Go to sleep, Daddy Long Legs. I’ll take care of her next.”

 

He has this. 


End file.
